For example, a 500-km bus trip from Beijing to Heze in Shandong province costs 200 yuan, but the train ticket for the same journey is only a little above 40 yuan, he said.

The train tickets are low because the railways are run by the government and people tend to regard it as a public welfare entitlement, he said.

To solve these "fundamental problems", the railway administration is now speeding up the construction of railways and aiming to extend the railway network to 120,000 km by 2020.

"When China's railways stretch to 100,000 km long by 2012, it could ease the pressure during the chunyun period," Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun told an annual working conference on Dec 31.

A fast passenger transport network will take shape by then, with bullet trains going at 200 to 350 kmh on tracks parallel to that of cargo transport.

Despite all these solutions provided by the ministry and experts, many are reportedly still unhappy with the current ticket distribution procedure, saying it is not transparent and open.

A survey by Sina.com earlier this month showed 47.3 percent of the respondents believed securing a train ticket in the chunyun period required "influence and unfair advantages".

Another 37 percent of the respondents said ticket scalpers always got hold of the tickets they desired, while only 15.4 percent of the respondents believed the tickets could be secured through normal channels like station booths.

The ministry was blamed for not revealing to the public details like how many train tickets are saved for tour operators and government departments, and how many tickets actually go to the people standing in the freezing winter air outside ticket offices.

There have therefore been increasing voices from the public in recent few years asking the ministry to sell train tickets the way airlines do.

Many people believed it is the way to guarantee ordinary travelers get the tickets in a fair way. A Xinhua News Agency report on Jan 7 showed that 51.2 percent of respondents in a recent survey agreed to adopt the airline industry's real-name registration system in train ticket sales. About 24.4 percent of those polled demanded severe punishment on scalpers and 10.9 percent suggested the introduction of competition into the railway system.

Adopting the real-name system for rail tickets nationwide is not difficult, said Li Jingsong, a lawyer advocating the system.

"There is no technical difficulty in the implementation of the real-name system Besides, it is a good way to prevent scalpers from selling tickets," he said.

But the railway authority does not agree with Li. Zhang Shuguang, deputy chief engineer with the ministry, said last week at a press briefing that conditions now are "not mature" enough for the system.

He said a real-name system will put extra workload on the train stations. "A train now carries about 2,000 passengers.

"While it only takes two more seconds to check the tickets and identities of the passengers under such a new system, it will cost nearly one more hour to complete checking passengers in a single carriage," he said.

During the peak travel season, delays could also lead to crowds in waiting rooms of railway stations and the danger of stampedes, he said.

Yang Hao, the professor with Beijing Jiaotong University, said the identity recognition facilities needed in the real-name system will also add huge costs for the ministry.

"There are 160 airports in China, but more than 5,000 railway stations. Equipping all railway stations with the name-recognition facilities will be very expensive," he said.

(China Daily January 24, 2009)