Various smart devices have been deployed across China to ensure efficient and smooth railway operations during the Spring Festival travel rush runs from Jan. 14 to Feb. 22 this year.
The travel rush, also known as "Chunyun", is a period of high transportation demand coinciding with China's largest annual holiday, the Spring Festival, a time where many people head home for family reunions while celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan 29 this year.
By leveraging big data, a guiding instrument provides train drivers real-time traffic reminders to enhance safe operations.
"This tablet computer offers professional and detailed planning guidance for every train trip. It is especially helpful during station maneuvering when complex cross-operations are quite a lot. Its reminders allow us ample time for decision-making, ensuring smooth operations and safe driving," said Kong Xiangpei, a train driver at China Railway Jinan Group Co., Ltd.
In cold, high-altitude regions, intelligent heating devices enable real-time monitoring and automatic removal of ice and snow from the rails with remote control.
"Once the rail temperature is detected to be low, the station's remote control terminal will activate the electric heating element to heat the rail temperature to 80 degrees Celsius within ten minutes. This greatly improves the efficiency compared to the traditional manual snow and ice removal," said Cheng Xin, a staff member at Chengdu Electric Service Section, China Railway Chengdu Group Co., Ltd.
Along the Beijing-Guangzhou High-speed Railway, a specialized car that can emit ultrasonic waves is being used to detect defects along railways. Through its host system and big data operations, inspection personnel can accurately identify defects of the rails.
"Previously, we would walk tens of thousands of steps every day, and stopped and bent over for inspection countless times. Five people can only complete 11 kilometers of railway inspection in four hours. Now, four people can complete 45 kilometers in four hours, with the accuracy reaching 100 percent," said Yang Wei, a staff member at the Wuhan high-speed train section, China Railway Wuhan Group Co., Ltd.
In Zhengzhou City of central China's Henan Province, a maintenance robot is being used to examine trains returning to the maintenance depot. It can access hard-to-see areas, conduct multi-angle scans, and transmit and save real-time images, significantly enhancing efficiency.
"The robotic maintenance (process) takes only 40 minutes, which greatly reduces operation time and enables identification and maintenance of various vehicle models," said Kou Wanchuang, a staff member at the Zhengzhou high-speed train section, China Railway Zhengzhou Group Co., Ltd.
Official data showed that China's railway network is expected to handle more than 510 million passenger trips during the upcoming Spring Festival travel rush, with an average of 12.75 million per day, an increase of 5.5 percent from 2024.
Over 75.74 million train tickets had been sold as of 16:00 Sunday since December 31, 2024, the first day the railway system opens ticket booking for the Spring Festival travel season.
Smart devices used to ensure smooth railway operations during China's Spring Festival travel rush
