Authorities in Baotou in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region will help passengers purchase travel tickets for Spring Festival by increasing the number of ticket reservations to Hangzhou and Chengdu by 15 percent. A range of services have also been implemented.

Travel numbers reach their peak in China during the Spring Festival travel rush – the largest annual human migration in the world – and tickets can be hard to come by. Helping passengers return to Baotou is a major challenge for the city’s train ticket department.

File photo [Photo/ nm.people.com.cn]

In response to the experience of ticket-selling in previous years, the station will ensure that there are enough tickets for passengers travelling between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and cities in Northeast China.

The station will also arrange for staff to check ticketing machines regularly, provide relevant consultation services, open temporary ticket windows for ticket refunds and offer special care for soldiers, elderly residents, hospital patients, handicapped travelers, pregnant women and students.

A police Identity Card Accreditation Center will be set up in the station to help passengers who lost their ID cards to collect or rebook tickets.

The reserved tickets refer to a long distance train, which has many stops and stations on its route. Some tickets will be reserved for stations part way along the route, so people who aren’t traveling from the start station can also get tickets. Reserved tickets will be sold one to two days before departure.