2017春运拉开大幕 你抢到回家车票了吗？

China is a country on the move— especially around its Lunar New Year holiday. This year, the holiday crush promises to be even heavier than before.

中国是一个“大迁徙”的国家，尤其是在春节假日左右。今年春运压力可能比以往都要大。

Government officials estimate that Chinese people will take to the air, roads and railways 3.62 billion times over a 40-day period around the nation’s most important holiday this year. The total is about 200 million more than last year—nearly three trips per person for this country of 1.3 billion—as people jostle their way home for family gatherings or to indulge their new-found passion for travel.

春节是中国最重要的节日，人们纷纷回家团聚或者外出旅行。中国政府官方预测，今年为期40天的春运期间，飞机、汽车、火车的客运总量将达36.2亿人次，比去年多2亿。算下来全国13亿人口平均每人乘车三次。

Getting tickets to all those would-be travelers is a daunting challenge that annually tries patience aswell as stamina. And it is the railway system that routinely is most unable to cope. Railways are the transport of choice for low-cost long-distance travel, and that’s where the ticketing system routinely falls down.

对于春运期间出行的旅客来说，购票无疑是个可怕的挑战，每年都试探着人们耐心和毅力的底线。通常来说铁道系统压力最大，火车是低成本的远距离交通方式，因而火车购票系统经常崩溃。

Much of the criticism has focused on the railway’s online purchasing system, which has been unable to keep pace with the huge demand and also failed stop scalpers from ending up with many of the hard-to-find tickets.

大部分批评集中在铁道部的在线购票系统上，这一系统无法支持巨大的车票订购需求量，还让黄牛有空可乘、卷走大量普通市民难以买到的车票。

While insisting that online sales were the fairest way to get tickets in the hands of travelers, rail officials told reporters at the briefing the public needs to be patient. Efforts were being made to provide online identity checks that would reduce the ticket scalping problems.

铁道部官方坚持说，在线购票是对旅客来说最公平的方式，同时铁道部在资讯发布会中对记者说旅客要多点耐心，他们正在努力规范网上购票实名登记制度和减少黄牛问题。

The rail system stretches across 100,000 kilometers and its pricier high-speed service now boasts some 10,000 kilometers of track. But with high-speed tickets hard to come by, many travelers are left standing in the aisles of the slower trains.

铁道系统全国线路长达10万公里，价格昂贵的高铁线路现已拓展至1万公里。但高铁车票难以买到，很多乘客只能坐慢速火车回家。

While officials had little good news for rail passengers, they did manage to bring a few smiles to those traveling by car as the country’s notoriously expensive highway tolls will be waived for the duration of the official holiday.

虽然政府机构没能给铁路乘客带来什么好消息，但他们的确努力为那些驾车回家的旅客提供便利，规定春节法定假日期间免除贵得出奇的高速公路费。

But for those hoping to save a few yuan on the drive to that New Year’s Eve dinner – think again. New Year’s Eve isn’t officially part of the holiday, and if you want to get there on time, you’re going to have to pay.

然而对那些想要省点钱、在除夕当天驾车回家吃年夜饭的人来说，先不要高兴得太早。因为除夕当天并非法定假日，如果你想赶上年夜饭的话还是得付高速公路费的。