春運拉開大幕 你搶到回家車票了嗎？

China is a country on the move— especially around its Lunar New Year holiday. This year, the holiday crush promises to be even heavier than before.
中國是一個“大遷徙”的國家，尤其是在春節假日左右。今年春運壓力可能比以往都要大。

Government officials estimate that Chinese people will take to the air, roads and railways 3.62 billion times over a 40-day period around the nation’s most important holiday this year. The total is about 200 million more than last year—nearly three trips per person for this country of 1.3 billion—as people jostle their way home for family gatherings or to indulge their new-found passion for travel.
春節是中國最重要的節日，人們紛紛回家團聚或者外出旅行。中國政府官方預測，今年爲期40天的春運期間，飛機、汽車、火車的客運總量將達36.2億人次，比去年多2億。算下來全國13億人口平均每人乘車三次。

Getting tickets to all those would-be travelers is a daunting challenge that annually tries patience aswell as stamina. And it is the railway system that routinely is most unable to cope. Railways are the transport of choice for low-cost long-distance travel, and that’s where the ticketing system routinely falls down.
對於春運期間出行的旅客來說，購票無疑是個可怕的挑戰，每年都試探着人們耐心和毅力的底線。通常來說鐵道系統壓力最大，火車是低成本的遠距離交通方式，因而火車購票系統經常崩潰。

Much of the criticism has focused on the railway’s online purchasing system, which has been unable to keep pace with the huge demand and also failed stop scalpers from ending up with many of the hard-to-find tickets.
大部分批評集中在鐵道部的在線購票系統上，這一系統無法支持巨大的車票訂購需求量，還讓黃牛有空可乘、捲走大量普通市民難以買到的車票。

While insisting that online sales were the fairest way to get tickets in the hands of travelers, rail officials told reporters at the briefing the public needs to be patient. Efforts were being made to provide online identity checks that would reduce the ticket scalping problems.
鐵道部官方堅持說，在線購票是對旅客來說最公平的方式，同時鐵道部在新聞發佈會中對記者說旅客要多點耐心，他們正在努力規範網上購票實名登記制度和減少黃牛問題。

The rail system stretches across 100,000 kilometers and its pricier high-speed service now boasts some 10,000 kilometers of track. But with high-speed tickets hard to come by, many travelers are left standing in the aisles of the slower trains.
鐵道系統全國線路長達10萬公里，價格昂貴的高鐵線路現已拓展至1萬公里。但高鐵車票難以買到，很多乘客只能坐慢速火車回家。

While officials had little good news for rail passengers, they did manage to bring a few smiles to those traveling by car as the country’s notoriously expensive highway tolls will be waived for the duration of the official holiday.
雖然政府機構沒能給鐵路乘客帶來什麼好消息，但他們的確努力爲那些駕車回家的旅客提供便利，規定春節法定假日期間免除貴得出奇的高速公路費。

But for those hoping to save a few yuan on the drive to that New Year’s Eve dinner – think again. New Year’s Eve isn’t officially part of the holiday, and if you want to get there on time, you’re going to have to pay.
然而對那些想要省點錢、在除夕當天駕車回家吃年夜飯的人來說，先不要高興得太早。因爲除夕當天並非法定假日，如果你想趕上年夜飯的話還是得付高速公路費的。