The top national rail science academy in China has developed an all-in-one train ticketing system that can unite ticket-selling platforms in over 140 countries on a smartphone app.
The system is tailor-made for member countries of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the world’s largest infrastructure investment campaign launched in 2013, and it will automatically access and coordinate their ticket-selling platforms.
Laos is the first country to sign up to the platform, with travellers using their smartphones to book tickets from March 15.
The main servers, located within the Chinese border, can handle requests from passengers around the world in different languages.
The team, led by computer scientist Zhang Zhiqiang from the China Academy of Railway Sciences Corporation, a government research agency overseeing the development of new train technology, has stated that the belt and road ticket machine will use Swiss francs as its standard currency for international exchange, instead of the US dollar.
“Settlement is based on the amount of Swiss francs for passenger tickets in different countries where the train stops, and a clearing report is generated on a monthly basis.
The system provides data support functions such as income verification, electronic payment, and liquidation,” the researchers explained.
STEEP CLIMB TO THE TOP
In 2011, passengers considered China’s domestic train ticket app, 12306, a joke because it constantly crashed.
The government asked for assistance from China’s tech giants to reconstruct the system, and now, it is the most popular travelling app in the country with almost 700 million subscribers, which is half the population.
During peak holiday periods like Chinese New Year, the app can manage 200 billion travellers every day, and issue over 1,500 tickets per second without any problems.