With the opening of a telephone train ticket booking system Sunday, long queues of intending Spring Festival travelers have so far been avoided at Shenzhen Railway Station for the first time in many years.

The booking hotline 9510-5160 opened at 7 a.m. Sunday for individual travelers to book 10 days in advance. Each caller with a valid ID card can book up to three tickets. The hotline operates between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. each day.

Booked tickets should be paid for at a post office and free delivery can be arranged by calling 11185. Tickets can also be collected at 11 locations designated by Guangshen Railway Co.

A Miss Chen, a resident at the Jingxin Garden housing estate, was the first to book a train ticket through the telephone booking system. She booked two tickets at 7 a.m. Sunday for a train journey to Wuchang in Hubei Province with her boyfriend. She paid 308 yuan (US$37) for the tickets at a post office in the Jingtian area in Futian District at 10 a.m. The tickets were delivered to her by post free of charge an hour later.

The hotline is the only way tickets can now be booked. Online booking, which was available earlier to groups of travelers, has closed.

Vice Mayor Zhang Siping asked the railway station to publish the number of tickets booked the previous day starting from Monday, saying this would make the process more transparent.

China Southern Airlines advised intending passengers to book airfares at least one week in advance despite many airlines have planned extra flights for the travel peak.

For road travel, officials said enough tickets would be available for travelers taking long-distance coaches. Booking has also been made easier with ticket offices at 18 coach stations being linked by computer. The booking network will open this week enabling people to book tickets for coaches departing from any of the 18 stations.

Editor: Catherine