Buying a train ticket home during Spring Festival, the largest human migration on the planet, is often seen as mission impossible by many Chinese. Excitement and anticipation to see family members for the annual reunion is hijacked by pain and heartache of trying to book a trip home.

Last week I received a call from my husband, who told me in a relaxed tone that he had finally booked our tickets with the help of his friends and a Web browser plug-in.

 My husband has felt immense pressure every year of our marriage to buy us train tickets ahead of Spring Festival from Beijing to his hometown of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. A few years ago, he went to Beijing West Railway Station to join long queues outside ticket offices before midnight, only to be told mid-morning the next day that tickets had sold out.

The following year, he abandoned long queues and decided to buy train tickets from scalpers for about 200 yuan ($32.20) more than the actual price. We were still excited to buy them, even though it meant we would have hard seats instead of more comfortable sleeping berths for the 24-hour journey.

Nowadays, the journey can be made in just 10 hours on bullet trains due to development of the railway. The process of booking tickets has also come a long way, with people able to do so online, over the phone or at ticket machines at railway stations after payment is made via online banking.

Group purchasing discounts are also available this year for the first time for migrant workers who book tickets in groups of six.

However, there still needs to be more convenient and efficient reform of the train ticket booking system. Some people have called for half-priced tickets if passengers endure their journeys without a seat.

This proposal has been criticized though by administrators, who suspect such passengers will sit in vacant seats if they are available.

The online ticket booking system should be improved as soon as possible. The Ministry of Railways should upgrade its ticket booking website instead of lashing out at software makers such as Kingsoft, which was ordered to suspend its browser plug-in that made booking train tickets more convenient.

China's train ticket e-commerce site, 12306.cn, has handled the influx of ticket-hungry Web users better this year than last year when the website crashed. But third-party solutions shouldn't be ordered to shut down by the ministry, as happened last Thursday, for essentially trying to make the official website more convenient.

Improving the ticket booking system is the only way to give people the confidence they will be able to secure a train ride home and enjoy Spring Festival in true fashion - with family members.