China's railway passenger system transitioned fully to electronic invoicing on Oct. 1, ending the use of paper reimbursement slips. The milestone marks the arrival of a new, fully digital era for train tickets.

This change in travel habits is woven into the everyday lives of ordinary people. A few years ago, returning home from Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang Province to central China's Hunan Province was something Li Juan dreaded. She had to cram onto a bus to Yiwu Railway Station, spend over 10 hours on a train to Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, and then take another two-hour bus ride — nearly 20 hours on the road.

Photo shows train tickets collected by a passenger. (People's Daily Online/Qiao Xuefeng)

Now, with the opening of new high-speed rail lines and a more integrated transport network, her journey has been completely transformed. She leaves Yiwu at 8 a.m. and by 2 p.m., she is standing at her front door in Hengyang, Hunan.

On Sept. 28, the Shenyang-Baihe section of the Shenyang-Jiamusi High-Speed Railway officially opened, cutting the shortest travel time between Beijing and the Changbai Mountain to 4 hours and 22 minutes, and between Shenyang and the Changbai Mountain to just 1 hour and 36 minutes.

"Now I can hit the slopes every weekend," said skiing enthusiast Zhang Jiahe.

Since Changbaishan Railway Station opened on Dec. 24, 2021, it has handled 2.79 million passenger trips, including more than 1.27 million in 2024.

The Shenyang-Baihe section of the Shenyang-Jiamusi High-Speed Railway officially opens to traffic. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

By the end of 2024, China's operational railway network reached 162,000 kilometers, up about 16,000 kilometers from the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), including 10,000 kilometers of newly added high-speed rail tracks. The country's total road mileage reached 5.49 million kilometers. High-grade navigable waterways extended to 17,600 kilometers, up 1,600 kilometers.

Minister of Transport Liu Wei noted that six of the 17 major targets set out in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), including expressway and urban rail lengths, BeiDou Satellite Navigation System usage in key areas and the share of new energy buses in urban public transport, were completed ahead of schedule in 2024. The remaining 11 items, including high-speed railway mileage and the rate of urban rail transit access to hub airports, are expected to be completed by the end of the year.