NE China province to try railway e-tickets

HARBIN - Northeast China's Heilongjiang province announced on Monday it would introduce the trial operation of an e-ticket system for bullet and high-speed trains from Saturday.

A total of 37 stations in the province are expected to adopt the system, where e-tickets will replace paper stubs and passengers can board trains using a valid ID card or a QR code generated by China's official railway ticket-booking mobile app, 12306, according to the China Railway Harbin Group.

For those who need hard copies of their tickets for reimbursement, printed tickets can be requested at designated counters at participating railway stations.

China has been progressively introducing railway e-tickets nationwide in recent years for the convenience of passengers.

Lines including the Beijing-Tianjin intercity railway and the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway have enabled the use of e-tickets.

China's high-speed railway network will continue to top the world with an estimated length of 35,000 km by the end of this year, China Railway said on Sunday.

In 2019, China's railways are estimated to record 3.6 billion passenger trips, up 92 percent from 2012.