Talking Travel: English Train Ticketing Site, Chaoyang Station Set to Open, and Baidu's Taxis to go Unmanned

Talking Travel: Your semi-regular roundup of Beijing's latest transportation-related news.

Train ticketing site just became more foreigner-friendly

At long last, English speakers will no longer have to fumble through an app or website only available in Chinese in order to book train tickets. The official booking website of China Railway, 12306.cn, has finally launched an English version of the site.

The site’s interface is fairly user-friendly and allows travelers to easily search for stations by typing the city’s name in English, and even has a check box to search for high-speed trains only. As far as English versions of government sites go, this is one of the better put together examples we have seen.

More than just booking, it also offers refunds, endorsements (that is, changing the date of travel, train number, or seat) and destination alteration services – all of which formerly were particular headaches for foreign travelers with sub-fluent Chinese skills – as well as a handy, well-written FAQ on these services.

The move comes as part of a veritable avalanche of changes designed to make China more welcoming to foreign visitors and residents. Beijing has been spearheading the movement by updating its own government services website to include eight languages.

The new Chaoyang Station is looking good to go

Formerly known as Xinghuo Station, the railway station just a skip more than a kilometer east of Chaoyang Park used to be a humble hub for freight trains. However, with its renovations all but complete, it will soon begin to take travelling passengers through its gates.

The station was originally going to be renamed Chaoyang Station, but with all the hype surrounding its completion, netizens began to point out that, confusingly, the station would share that name with the Chaoyang Station in Liaoning. The solution was simple enough: The station in Beijing will be renamed Beijing Chaoyang Station, while the station in the coastal city will be called – you guessed it – Liaoning Chaoyang Station.

If you’re planning on making it to the Harbin light festival this year, you might just find yourself starting out at this station, because it will serve as a terminal hub for the Beijing-Harbin railway line. If you do find yourself in that boat (er.. train), however, you might consider taking a cab to the station, because station’s Line 3 subway stop is still under construction.

Baidu taxis will go fully unmanned

Call it amazing progress, or call it downright scary, but either way, Baidu’s driverless taxis are about to hit the road without anyone in the driver’s seat to take the wheel, should something go wrong.

In October, the driverless taxis – aka Baidu’s Apollo GO – launched in Haidian and Shunyi with limited access to roads and select stops for passengers from certain pick-up spots, all the while an operator remained in the front seat, ready to take over in case of an emergency. Now that the cars have passed that test with flying colors, the Beijing municipal government has granted permits to Baidu to do away with these supervisors and allow passengers to ride all by their lonesome selves.

That makes Baidu the first company to launch unmanned taxis in Beijing, and the second to do so in China – a company called AutoX beat them to the punch on that one. But Baidu has something that AutoX doesn’t: the ability to monitor the cars on its 5G "Remote Driving Service" system. Overall, it sounds like a safe bet – and may just be safer than taking a DiDi.

READ: WildChina: Where to Travel this December

Images: 12306, Youth.cn, China Rail, Shangdixini