 A senior railway official in Guangdong Province has admitted that despite local transportation plans for the week-long Spring Festival holiday, millions of passengers will still have problems buying train tickets.
Luo Jiancheng, the official from Guangdong, explains the bleak situation.
"The difference between the volume and capability of train transport during the holiday season is profound. In Guangdong we have set up more than 1,000 ticket hotlines, but a single train has only 2,000 seats. This creates a very real problem that tickets are limited in number, and some people will have to go without."
China's Railway Ministry predicts the passenger peak will deal with over 188 million people, up 8 percent compared with the same period last year.
Experts say the unprecedented growth of domestic passengers during the holiday period has overshadowed government efforts, such as new high-speed and inter-city trains put into operation earlier this year.
The 40-day Spring Festival season will begin on Jan. 11, 15 days before the Lunar New Year's Day, and will end on Feb. 19.
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