Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 6th Title: Eight major changes in Spring Festival travel rush in the past 40 years of reform and opening up.
Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters Qi Zhongxi, Fan Xi and Zhao Wenjun
As the Spring Festival approaches, Spring Festival travel rush is getting busy. Looking back at Spring Festival travel rush since the reform and opening up 40 years ago, what great changes can we find?
— — Change 1: from 100 million to nearly 3 billion, the scale has expanded 30 times.
Looking through the history of Spring Festival travel rush in New China can be traced back to 1954 at the earliest. At that time, the word "Spring Festival travel rush" appeared in the media for the first time, and the relevant parties also determined the principle of "unified command and coordination by the Ministry of Railways, and when necessary, please ask the CPC Central Committee and the State Council to ask the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions and the People’s Liberation Army for assistance" to do related work well.
Spring Festival travel rush really became a social focus, but also from the beginning of reform and opening up. The spring tide of reform has enabled China’s population to move on a large scale, and the increase in income has given people spare money to travel. Migrant workers, students, visiting relatives and tourists have begun to converge in Spring Festival travel rush. In 1979, China’s Spring Festival travel rush made a historic breakthrough of 100 million person-times. "One vote is hard to find" has become the focus of Spring Festival travel rush every year since then.
In 2018, Spring Festival travel rush is expected to send 2.98 billion passengers nationwide, which is basically the same as last year. In forty years, the size of Spring Festival travel rush has expanded 30 times.
— — Change 2: the speed is 40 kilometers to 350 kilometers per hour, and the high-speed rail compresses the time and space distance.
People who have experienced Spring Festival travel rush more than ten years ago or even earlier will never forget the green leather car. The carriages are full of yearning for their hometown, and also bear the hardships of the journey home, not only the crowded carriages, but also the slow speed of stop-and-go. At that time, the average speed of national railways was less than 40 kilometers per hour.
On April 18, 2007, the first EMU train with a speed of 200 kilometers per hour started at Shanghai Station, and China entered the era of motor trains. At present, the national railway operating mileage reaches 127,000 kilometers, of which the high-speed railway with a speed of more than 250 kilometers per hour exceeds 25,000 kilometers, ranking first in the world.
Nowadays, there are more and more "Fuxing" high-speed emus with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour. The distance from Beijing to Shanghai is about 1300 kilometers. It took almost one day and one night decades ago, but now it takes more than four hours at the earliest. High-speed rail greatly compresses the distance between time and space.
In 2018, with the addition of 3,038 kilometers of new high-speed rail to Spring Festival travel rush, the total number of railway passengers will increase by at least 30 million, of which about 60% will travel by high-speed rail.
— — Change 3: From "small window" to "big data", subverting the way of purchasing tickets.
"Buying tickets" has been an eternal theme in Spring Festival travel rush for decades. But how to buy a ticket has been very different these years.
Huang Xin, deputy director of the Passenger Transport Department of China Railway Corporation, used to work in Guangzhou Railway Group, and began to engage in passenger transport services in Spring Festival travel rush more than 20 years ago. According to his memory, at that time, the dense queues in front of Guangzhou station could throw out a few kilometers away. At night, people lay on the floor in front of the ticket window with bedrolls and lined up all night.
Nowadays, with the popularity of the Internet and the development and use of the new generation railway ticket system, people can buy tickets by "moving their fingertips" through the Internet.
"In 12306, the daily average page views reached 55.67 billion times, the page views reached 81.34 billion times at the peak, and the maximum number of hits in one hour was nearly 6 billion times, with an average of about 1.65 million times per second. The processing capacity reaches 15 million sheets per day. " Zhu Jiansheng, deputy director of Institute of Electronics, Academy of Iron Sciences, said.
At present, the Internet, including mobile APP, accounts for more than 60% of the total ticket sales, and more than 80% in big cities.
— — Change 4: From "battlefield" to "airport", the waiting environment is very different.
"Just like fighting, I can’t go home at the station for dozens of days. I divert people in the station square and waiting room every day for fear of an accident." Whenever Spring Festival travel rush was mentioned, Yao Hongren, the retired former deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Beijing West Railway Station, still has a lingering fear.
Huang Xin recalled the "thrilling scene" of that year and said that at that time, the station and waiting room were all full of people, and the dense heads looked scary. People are like the tide. After the tide recedes, the waiting square is full of squeezed shoes.
"When I arrive in Spring Festival travel rush, I am most afraid that the people gathered in the station can’t walk every day, and there is an accident like trampling, and I am scared every day." Huang Xin said.
In those days, the railway station in Spring Festival travel rush was like a "battlefield", which makes it hard for people who are used to high-speed trains to imagine. Today’s high-speed rail station is not much different from the airport. More people like to calculate the time to arrive at the station, print their tickets by electronic equipment, and then visit the shopping malls inside to buy some special products, or sit down for a cup of coffee.
— — Change 5: From "starvation" to "online ordering", "internet plus" got on the train.
"You can still eat hot and authentic braised pork on the train. I really didn’t dare to think about it before!" During his stay in Spring Festival travel rush, Mr. Chang, who lives in Baotou, said cheerfully in the dining car of the Z315 train from Beijing to Hohhot.
This year in Spring Festival travel rush, Hohhot Railway Bureau Group took the lead in offering "Chinese fast food" reservation and delivery service on Z315/6 and Z317/8 trains for different levels of demand, so that passengers can enjoy the Spring Festival travel rush on the tip of their tongue.
Eating by train is a big problem. In the past, it was not easy to get on the green leather car, so it was a luxury to eat hot meals and dishes on the car. With the gradual improvement of the ride environment, people can eat the box lunch provided by the train, and more people choose to bring their own dry food.
According to the memories of some retired railway conductors, everything was brought at that time, including pancakes, green onions and lunch boxes. Later, more and more people brought bread, sausages and instant noodles, and even roast chicken beer was brought when conditions were better. There is a dining car on the train, and there is a box lunch delivered by a trolley. The cheapest box lunch on each train always sells the fastest.
Now, there are more and more bento boxes on the train, ranging from 15 yuan to seventy or eighty yuan. Since last summer, the railway has launched the Internet ordering service for EMU trains, which has enriched people’s dining on high-speed trains: not only fast food such as KFC and Kung Fu, but also local specialties such as beef noodles, lion’s head and salted duck.
— — Change 6: From "going around" to "extending in all directions", the road home is easier.
In people’s memory, Spring Festival travel rush is always closely linked with railway trains. In fact, Spring Festival travel rush’s road trip is the "big head". Of the nearly 3 billion passengers this year, less than 400 million were transported by rail, and more than 80% went home by road.
Because of the highway, we don’t have to take a tractor or even a carriage, but drive a car and get on a bus; Because of the bridge, we don’t have to take a small ferry anymore; Because of the tunnel, we don’t have to go around in the mountains anymore … … Nowadays, the road network extending in all directions makes the road home easier, faster and safer.
In the early days of reform and opening up, the highway density per 100 square kilometers in China was only 9.1 kilometers. Now, this figure has expanded more than five times, reaching 48.92 kilometers per 100 square kilometers.
China’s expressways didn’t start construction until the 1980s. In 1988, the Shanghai-Jiading Expressway was opened to traffic, marking a zero breakthrough in China’s expressways. In 1999, China’s expressway mileage exceeded 10,000 kilometers, and last year it reached 136,000 kilometers. The expressway has covered 97% of the cities and prefecture-level administrative centers with a population of more than 200,000.
— — Change 7: From "pots and pans" to "express delivery", the less luggage, the easier it is.
No matter how you go home, always take your luggage. Over the years, people’s luggage has also changed a lot.
Ten years back, in railway stations and long-distance bus stations, the kind of "you carry the burden, I hold the child, bring all the pots and pans and bedrolls, and there is a small home in the luggage" is everywhere. People who go home from work bring as many new year’s goods as possible, as well as daily necessities that they can’t bear to throw away.
Nowadays, in Spring Festival travel rush, the burden on people’s shoulders is getting lighter and lighter, and the steps are not as heavy as before. Less luggage, on the one hand, shows that life is better, and the gap between urban and rural areas has narrowed. What used to be only available in the city is now available in the countryside. On the other hand, the booming e-commerce has acted as a "porter" for new year’s goods.
According to the person in charge of the Market Supervision and Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Post Bureau, more and more people are shopping online for the Spring Festival in advance, and people have not arrived yet. During my stay in Spring Festival travel rush last year, more than 100 million parcels were on the road every day, of which more than 60% were new year’s goods.
— — Change 8: From "going home" to "traveling", Spring Festival travel rush is all over the world.
As the old saying goes, "If you have money, go home for the New Year". No matter how hard the journey is, you must go back to your hometown and parents for the New Year. In recent years, it has become fashionable to take family members out to travel for the New Year. Northerners go south to "warm up", southerners go north to "cat winter", and even more and more families travel abroad.
During the Spring Festival of 2017, the country received a total of 344 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 13.8%. This year, this figure is only a lot more.
According to Ctrip’s travel forecast, the Spring Festival in 2018 will be the "hottest" Spring Festival in history, with more than 6 million outbound tourists, more than 100 departure cities, more than 60 countries and 280 destinations around the world, and the farthest to the South Pole.