奇速英语

春运一票难求

Groups of volunteers are using their spare time to book train tickets online and help migrant workers return home for the nation's most important holiday.

Zhao Hongli is a freshman at Inner Mongolia Agricultural University in Hohot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Instead of preparing for end-of-year exams, he spent his time on something less interesting, but equally hard—buying train tickets for about 100 migrant workers. If they get the tickets, they could get home for the Spring Festival, which was viewed as the most important holiday by Chinese people for family reunions.

Although many tech masters are familiar with the process of buying tickets on the Internet or mobile apps, it can be a hard experience for migrant workers, many of whom have only received a basic education, maybe only having gone to primary school.

About 3 billion trips are expected during the Spring Festival travel rush, which runs from Jan. 13 to Feb. 21. The great demand for tickets means it sells quickly. Many years ago, there was no online booking system, migrant workers could possibly get tickets if they waited in the queue. Now with the online booking system, the tickets can be sold out within minutes of sales opening. The booking system, which is intended to save people from lining up at station ticket offices, has made it impossible for those basically-educated people to buy tickets, leaving many people frustrated.