Ministry of Railways dismisses criticism

The Ministry of Railways (MOR) defended itself Wednesday against recent public criticism over its selling of train tickets for the Spring Festival travel rush, blaming ticket buying plug-ins for overburdening their website.

According to the MOR, these plug-ins overburdened the system. Technical measures have been taken to improve the system and the MOR suggested software companies stop providing such plug-ins.

"Using plug-ins is like running a red light. Personal information might also be leaked as the plug-ins are prone to viruses," said an official with the MOR in an email interview with the Global Times.

The official online ticketing system of the MOR has been widely criticized for its incapability of handling a huge amount of traffic, and Web browser plug-ins for buying tickets have become popular recently.

Li Ping, a public relations officer from Kingsoft, a software provider, told the Global Times that their service is running as usual and constantly updating according to the changes of the official system. "Users will be noticed by a pop-up window of any updates to the plug-in," said Li.

Plug-ins provided by other companies were also operating normally as of Wednesday.

Standing tickets are the only way for many people to travel during the Spring Festival, and 93.6 percent of Web users are calling for half-price standing tickets due to the compromised service quality, according to a survey conducted by Sina that attracted 930,000 responders.

The MOR argued that the standing ticket is a temporary measure to relieve the insufficient transport capacity and that over-selling puts great pressure on passenger services, operations and facilities.

Transport income will also be reduced during the holiday due to the freeze on much of freight transport and the replacement of sleeping cabins with all-seat cabins, the MOR claimed.

The explanation did not satisfy passengers and many stated that the MOR still puts its profit over public interests.

The MOR also responded to questions on the difference between various purchasing channels. Currently, the pre-sale period for the official phone and online system is two days earlier than local train stations and authorized ticket booths.

"It is designed to encourage passengers to use the phone and online system, and we have seen much fewer overnight long queues at local ticket offices," said the MOR official, adding that the ministry has introduced measures to help migrant workers who have little access to Internet, including group booking and mobile ticketing cart services.

Private organizations are also helping migrant workers to go home. Zhao Wenfeng, a Ningbo-based businessman, initiated a car-pooling campaign to take migrant workers home by privately owned cars for free.