And the travel choices for the 2020 Spring Festival travel rush are also
more diverse with a comprehensive transport system covering road, rail,
water and air.
The travel rush, which sees families and friends reunite around the
country for China's most important traditional holiday, began 15 days
ahead of the Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on
January 25 this year.
The high-speed rail link between Beijing and Zhangjiakou, co-host city
of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in north China's Hebei Province,
started operating on December 30 last year.
The travel time between the two cities has been greatly shortened, and
Zhangjiakou is now with Beijing's one-hour economic circle, said Li
Shengwu, head of the Infrastructure Development Department of
Zhangjiakou Development and Reform Commission.
A core part of the "eight verticals and eight horizontals" rail network,
the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed service connects with the
Zhangjiakou-Hohhot and Datong-Zhangjiakou high-speed lines, helping to
reduce the holiday travel pressure in Beijing, eastern Inner Mongolia,
Shanxi Province and northern Hebei Province.
Travel is becoming more efficient for travelers this Spring Festival,
who are expected to make 3.6 billion trips during the period.Ticket sale
is the first big test. Rapid technological development has accelerated
online ticket sales and ticket checking.In the 2020 holiday rush, the
daily ticketing capacity of the official 12306 online booking service
will increase from 15 million to 20 million.
Ticket checking is faster as e-tickets are quickly replacing paper
tickets. The checking of e-tickets, a service now available at all
high-speed railway stations, takes 30 percent less time compared with
manual checking of paper tickets.
Facial recognition technology has also been used in some stations to speed up the ticket checking process.
Travel services are also becoming more intelligent with robot
information services and intelligent storage facilities further
improving travel efficiency.
In recent years, stations with heavy traffic such as the southern city
of Guangzhou and the northwestern city of Xi'an have been using patrol
robots for security. The robot can be on duty 24 hours a day in all
weathers and check potential risks to prevent fire and other safety
problems.
Artificial intelligence security monitoring is realizing real-time
analysis and early warning of passenger flows, so authorities can
effectively prevent stampedes and other safety issues during the travel
rush.The Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway is the first intelligent high-speed
service with scientific and technological elements inside and out.
The carriages offer 5G signal, wireless charging, intelligent light
adjustment, stepless color-changing windows, blind guidance and other
functions. They also have adjustable seats and ski equipment cabinets,
and can receive live broadcasts from the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The in-depth application of big data, AI and 5G technologies promises to
usher in more new-generation intelligent vehicles such as self-driving
vehicles, ultra-high-speed trains, unmanned aerial vehicles and
intelligent ships.
