In order to better compete with airline, operators of the lucrative Shanghai-Beijing railway will offer faster trips, more frequent trains and a frequent-rider bonus plan starting this month.
As of April 18, nonstop train rides between
Shanghai and the capital will only take 12 hours, two hours less than current trips, according to the
Shanghai Railway Administration.
Nonstop trains will leave the city for
Beijing every seven minutes between 7pm and 7:28pm every day, the administration announced yesterday.
By that time, trains will host about eight times as many soft sleeper cars as they do now.
"With the capacity increasing largely, we will maintain our efforts to make the Shanghai-Beijing route a first-class railway service in the country," said Liu Lianqing, director of the
Shanghai Railway Administration. Frequent rail travelers will be allowed to join a bonus program that offers one free trip on the route after paying for 10 trips.
While such plans have been popular with airlines around the world for decades, this is the first time a Chinese railway has offered free trips to frequent customers, according to officials with the administration.
"It sounds interesting. I never heard of railway operators awarding passengers with tickets. Maybe I will sign up as I have to travel between the two cities about once or twice a month," said Wu Xiang, a 28-year-old telecommunications engineer in Shanghai.
The administration has found a foreign investor - which it wouldn't name - experienced in offering meals for railway passengers to help it devise menus and offer all its soft-bed passengers free meals.
"The meals will be delicious ," said Gu Guangming, deputy general manager of
Shanghai Railway Economy Develop Co.
Railway officials are also making it easier to book tickets, allowing people to reserve a seat up to 180 days before their trains' departure. Under the current railway system, individual passengers can't book a confirmed ticket beforehand but they can buy a ticket 10 days in advance.
According to Liu Jianmin, vice director of the administration, the passenger volume per kilometer on the Shanghai-Beijing line is the busiest, 5.8 times that of the average level in the country.
