Hits on 12306.cn, the official website for booking train tickets, reached 1.4 billion on Monday. The company that runs the website is a subordinate enterprise of the Ministry of Railways and also a State-owned enterprise of monopoly. But the website has been experiencing frequent downtime in spite of a huge investment.

The right of selling tickets is monopolized since that's the only way for the public to buy tickets. In other words, the huge number of hits on the 12306.cn resulted from the lack of other access to booking and buying tickets.

Without sufficient competition, relevant enterprises are not likely to provide good services for buying tickets online. The downtime and other problems with 12306.cn, like people being charged but not getting a ticket, are caused by the lack of competition.

Millions of yuan were invested in the website but the result is not ideal. We have to ask if the investment was worthwhile. It is hoped relevant department can evaluate the investment and see if the money was wasted. From a certain angle, the monopoly of online ticket buying is nothing surprising because the operation of Chinese railways is also monopolized. But to solve the problem, reform is necessary for the railway system to break the monopoly.

Guangzhou Daily