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Will the 2019 Spring Festival games promote the speed of standby ticket buying and ticket grabbing?

Nowadays, using '12306' to buy tickets has become the first step of most people's journey. Have you heard about the waiting ticket? The standby ticket purchasing function will go online during the Spring Festival 2019, and the ticket grabbing situation will be alleviated again. It's really a good thing for those who want to grab tickets to go home during the Spring Festival.

Dan Xinghua is a leader in the field of railway passenger information and a technology leader in the research and development of China's railway ticketing and reservation system, known as the strongest brain of the '12306' system. Although this system has been on line since 2012, it has been concerned and controversial. But with the continuous upgrading of the system and the continuous improvement of the user experience, there are fewer and fewer questions. Single apricot flower admits that the team faces the pressure of 400 million registered users.

On November 30, Shan Xinghua revealed to reporters that her and her team's' alternate ticket purchase 'function will be launched during the Spring Festival 2019, when the situation of ticket grabbing will ease again.

In order to welcome the Spring Festival, Shan Xinghua currently leads the system R & D personnel to rent near the unit. 'we are the first test in all service sectors of the railway system to ensure the safe travel of thousands of people,' said Shan.

Ticket selling system of railway network from scratch

In 1996, Shan Xinghua, who was also studying in East China Jiaotong University, was selected by the university to participate in the research and development and promotion of the national major scientific research project "China railway ticket sales and reservation system".

Dan Xinghua said that the sale and reservation system developed in 1996 marked the Internet-based development of China's railway ticketing data. 'at that time, there was a lot of pressure. A lot of knowledge in the project had to be learned and done at the same time. At the same time, it could not delay the study and there was no leisure time. '

At 6:00 on January 15, 1997, Nanchang station operated the computer ticketing system for the first time. Unexpectedly, only two hours later, the system was paralyzed. We had to turn to manual ticket selling. After a day and a night of hard work, we finally achieved stable ticket selling again the next day.

Shan Xinghua told the Beijing news that the first generation of railway ticketing system has been continuously upgraded and is still used for window ticket sales. With the development of Internet technology, 12306 system is finally born.

In 1999, Shan Xinghua graduated from the graduate school and stayed in the Institute of electronics, Chinese Academy of Railway Sciences, where she continued to engage in the research and development of passenger ticket system. In that year, the national ticketing data was interconnected. Since then, the system has been upgraded from version 1.0 to version 6.0. Single Xinghua participated in the whole process and finally led the team to launch 12306 ticket system.

Take 3 months to develop 12306 Online

In the three months after the 2012 Spring Festival, in order to meet the needs of passengers and the development trend of the Internet, Shan Xinghua, as the research and development leader, began to hold meetings with more than 100 colleagues day and night to discuss issues. After three months of 'centralized R & D' and testing, 12306 ticketing system went online on June 12, 2012.

Let single apricot flower did not think of is that the first spring festival ushered in visitors far more than previously expected, 12306 site has become stuck. Single apricot flower introduced that the passengers kept refreshing the page and could not get into the ticket page, so they managed to squeeze into the ticket page. In a sense, the system was in a state of paralysis because the system was stuck and could not buy tickets. "I was very anxious at that time. People who were looking forward to going home for the new year were anxiously swiping tickets in front of the screen. As the R & D personnel of this system, I felt very sad. '3 days and 3 nights, Shan Xinghua and the team almost did not rest to rush to repair, and finally let the new system return to normal.

In the face of complex network environment, the challenge is not only the increase of users. The birth of malicious ticket grabbing, ticket occupying, ticket collecting and other online ticket scalpers and a lot of ticket grabbing apps puts the new system under great pressure. Single apricot flower introduced that the speed and times of manual refreshing web pages are limited, and the speed of automatic refreshing web pages by machine or software can be set arbitrarily, which is very easy to fill the memory space of 12306 server. Single apricot flower says, this added a heavy burden to them undoubtedly. At that time, in addition to the daily operation and maintenance of the system, the birth of these websites and apps shared too much of our experience and cost. '

Consider cancelling the ticket limit after 23 hours

After the problem appeared, Shan Xinghua and the team started to solve it again. For example, the internal optimization and upgrading and restriction of ticket grabbing platform IP address, but Dan Xinghua said that 12306 software is different from other app development, users' age and cultural knowledge reserve are quite different, so the construction of the platform should consider all kinds of people.

The team considered the ways of text, common sense judgment questions, mathematical calculation, etc. to verify when users log in the system and pay for tickets. Later, considering the user's cultural level, the team launched a graphic verification. Shan Xinghua said: 'before, there was news that we used celebrity avatars for verification and identification. These were the jokes of netizens. We never launched them. '

The reason why 12306 system can't buy tickets after 23 o'clock, which has been questioned by the outside world, was explained by Shan Xinghua. In the face of huge ticket buying volume and new ticket grabbing methods of various software, even malicious attacks, the pressure on the server is huge every day. In the evening, the team will discuss, optimize and upgrade the system, and transfer the data generated during the day to other servers overnight, so in this process, ticket sales cannot be carried out. Single apricot flower said that they are considering technical means to lift the restriction of not being able to buy tickets after 23 o'clock.

One day at the beginning of 2018, single apricot blossom had a high fever of more than 39 ℃, and there was no strength in bed. Suddenly, seeing a piece of bitcoin that can buy 30 million 12306 passenger information, she immediately sat up from the bed to call the police and report to the leader. 'I wanted to ask my friends to use bitcoin to test whether the news was true, only to find out that it was false news that made me lie in bed. '

In the early years of the 12306 on-line, the team of single apricot flower and the system make complaints about the outside world. 'after all, we have to face tens of millions of train tickets sold every day, and hundreds of millions of users use them. 'single apricot has thought of giving up. 'such a huge system, I have witnessed its growth from scratch, just like my own children, every time I think of countless people stepping on the way home through this system, I feel happy. '

"Alternate ticket purchase" function or faster than ticket grabbing software

Shan Xinghua started to welcome the Spring Festival games in September this year. The 'alternate ticket purchase' function that she and her team started to develop will go online during the Spring Festival games in 2019. 'when the passenger encounters the situation that the ticket is sold out, the 12306 system will automatically purchase the ticket for the passenger after registering the ticket information and paying the pre purchase fund on the 12306 platform, if there are any refunds and surplus tickets, regardless of the speed or success rate of the ticket purchase, it will take the lead in the ticket grabbing software.

On November 3 this year, the homepage of 12306 ticketing system was upgraded according to the needs and habits of passengers and aesthetic requirements. In addition, 7.0 ticketing system is also under discussion. Shan Xinghua said that these upgrades are based on huge user feedback and the continuous pursuit of the R & D team.

At present, 12306 ticket sales processing capacity has been increased to 15 million tickets / day, and daily operation is stable. At the same time, they also launched new functions on 12306 website, such as ordering 'take out' platform, connecting transfer, EMU seat selection, etc.

According to statistics, the number of registered users of 12306 system has exceeded 400 million, the number of Omni channel tickets sold on peak days has exceeded 13 million, and the proportion of Internet tickets sold has exceeded 70%. However, the R & D, operation and maintenance costs of this set of ticketing system, which is at the international leading level, are far lower than the expenses of manual ticketing, saving more than 800 million yuan / year of direct costs such as labor and consumables for the railway, and saving more than 10 billion yuan / year of direct transportation costs for the whole society.

Over the past 20 years, with her dream and belief in mind, Shan Xinghua has been working hard in the field of railway passenger ticket technology innovation. She has successively won honors such as the national March 8th red flag bearer, the top-notch talents in Railway Science and technology, the May 4th Youth Medal of the central government, the fire locomotive Medal of the national railway Federation of trade unions and Zhan Tianyou Youth Award. In 2017, Shan Xinghua was elected as the representative of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. In the face of achievements and honors, Shan Xinghua said that he has worked hard for more than 20 years, suffered from pain and happiness, and achieved a little so-called & lsquo; achievements & rsquo; just at the right time of his life, thanks to this era and the great development of the railway. '