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Travelers taking trains at Shanghai Railway Station will soon enjoy the convenience of buying tickets using a new self-service system, which is being introduced as a time-saving alternative to the traditional queuing up method. Six ticket vending machines, the first of their kind in the country, have been installed at the station's waiting hall for the convenience of short-distance travelers, bound for neighboring Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces. The machines will have a test run around the middle of October when people can buy one-way or round-trip tickets with an integrated circuit card. At present, most travelers go to the railway station to buy tickets one or two days in advance of their departure, fearing they may be sold out on D-Day, Wang Lushan, a Shanghai Railway Station spokeswoman, said. "With the new ticketing sys-tem, travelers needn't waste time going to the station earlier to buy tickets," said Wang. Instead, they could first buy an IC card for five yuan (60 U.S. cents) at the station's ticketing counters, and then deposit no less than 200 yuan in it. The station will issue a total of 10,000 cards. A traveler can book a ticket by calling a phone number printed at the back of the IC card and give his name, the card number as well as his destination. The only thing left then is to arrive at the station 30 minutes before the train leaves, insert the IC card into the machines and get your ticket. "The machines are being introduced to facilitate the ticketing process, saving time for people who take trains frequently," said Ruan Jianxiang, a Shanghai Railway Administrative Bureau spokesman. The machines may be introduced at major railway stations in neighboring cities, like Nanjing and Hangzhou, if the test run is successful.