Travel rush puts ticket buyers through iron cage
- Source: Global Times
- [01:08 January 28 2010]
- Comments
By Chen Chenchen
As the annual chunyun (Spring Festival passenger transportation) approaches, the Chinese are back at the ritual of whatever it takes to get a train ticket. In front of many ticket windows, the throng shuffles forward slowly.
It is a potential safety hazard exists, as the seething crowds and disorder may lead to a stampede. While ticket buyers clearly outnumber security personnel on the spot, how to efficiently maintain order calls for superb management wisdom.
A train ticket agency at Ganjiang Road of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province recently set an extraordinary example.
A narrow and colossal iron cage, 30-meter long, a half-meter wide and two-meter high, was placed outside the agency's east door Tuesday. People had to walk through the cage to buy tickets.
No one jumped the queue or fell down, because it was extremely inconvenient to jostle or scuffle with the person ahead or behind.
This outrageous cage emerged as a chunyun requirement. Each of the Chinese who worked and lived away from home would retain fresh in his memory the bitter experience of waiting before a ticket agency during chunyun.
Security rails were pushed away or broken. One has to shove his way ahead because there was no queue around. Ticket buyers were often young and strong, since the old and the weak might easily fall down at and be smothered in the crowd. As the staff at the Ganjiang Road ticket agency claimed, "We placed the cage to increase the margin of safety."
Nevertheless, the cage did not ease the ordeal of ticket buyers. Many lined up in the cage from 3 am, waiting for the ticket issue to begin 12 hours later. Some called friends or relatives to send over food and water.
Once in the cage, there's no question of getting out except after buying the ticket. Everyone endured the captivity, tediousness and distended bladder. It was a long drawn-out battle.
Some in the queue found that they couldn't put up with the cage. They climbed out and left. Given adequate availability of tickets, no one would like to cool his heels in the cramped confines of a ticket agency.
Some say that easiest way out is for China's train capacity to be enhanced, since the ticket availability would be tight even without scalpers. However, we should take into consideration the balance of train capacity at both normal and special periods. It's a waste of rail capacity if extra chunyun trains remain unused during other times. And, trains need not be the only mode of travel for most Chinese.
Due to its performance-price ratio advantage, train travel remains the most popular among Chinese. Inevitably, the railway bears the brunt of the chunyun rush.
The way out of this predicament may be integrated and optimum use of road, airline and railway capacity, and a reasonable price mechanism to avoid excessive load on any one mode.
