China’s Railway Ministry’s forays into the world of advanced technology have gone well. In cyberspace there was the embarassing disaster of this year’s online ticketing system, which started broken and stayed that way while also attracting criticism for being unfair. And then of course there was that whole horrific high speed train crash incident. And, uh, all those other high speed rail problems.
But never fear! This year will be better, railway officials promised during an official report yesterday. The online ticketing system will be upgraded and improved, and its hardware will be upgraded. Of course, things would be even better if the government would be willing to invest more in the Railway Ministry, and divest it of some of its public service duties so that it can focus more on embezzling money er, I mean providing top quality service, or something. Definitely not embezzling.
And as far as the high speed rail thing goes, Railway officials understand why people are skeptical, but they pushed to continue the development of China’s high speed rail system. As transportation department head Wu Qiang put it, the country should not “refrain from eating for fear of choking.”
[Dongfang Daily via Sina Tech]