Author: positive solutions Board, drawing from the title: Vision China
When it comes to price, the biggest thing that everyone feels this year is the price of pork. Like in Shanghai, it costs 10 yuan per catty from the beginning of the year to 30 in October this year. many. If the time is extended to 20 years, what is the price? Don’t tell me, it’s true, there is one, and it’s closely related to hundreds of millions of people: train fares.
For example, from 1996 to 2019, in the 23 years, the 37 trains from Beijing West to Wuchang, starting from no letters, to K and Z, the speed is getting faster and faster, but the fare remains the same. . Take the hard sleeper, it has been around 260 yuan.
Until today, the price of this hard sleeper is still 261.5 yuan, which is consistent with 1996.
It took nearly a month’s salary from Beijing to Shanghai
For more than 20 years, there have been too many things. The price of the house, the changing body shape, and the price of the pork… When everything is changing, the same thing is especially valuable. Then, China Express train fare (not including trains and high-speed rails), why not raise prices for more than 20 years? After all, electricity, labor and equipment costs are rising.
The train fare is calculated based on the basic fare, combined with factors such as speed, model and bunk:
1. Set the basic fare, the general speed up 20%, quickly increase by 40%, and multiply by the corresponding mileage;
2. Combine the different seats and air conditioning of the train, and increase by 25%-195% respectively;
3. Plus a surcharge of 1-12 yuan.
Since October 1, 1995, the basic fare for the express train has been 0.05861 yuan per person per kilometer, so the fare has not risen.
Train ticket pricing standard
How cheap is the train ticket that has not risen in 20 years? One dimension that can be compared is wage income. Take the Beijing-Shanghai Express fast hard train ticket as an example. It has remained at 304.5 yuan for more than 20 years.
Annual average wages of workers in industrial enterprises with independent accounting at or above the township level in 1995(apparently equivalent to per capita wages) is 4,367 yuan, which is about 12 yuan per day. In 2018, the average annual salary of urban non-private employees is 82,461 yuan, 226 yuan per day. /p>
Under simple calculations, buy this train ticket and spend 25 days of salary 20 years ago. Today, it doesn’t even need a day or a half.
Data Source: National Bureau of Statistics
Another dimension that can be compared is the price. If the rise is most obvious in the past 20 years, it is definitely not the price. In most cities in China, housing prices have risen three or five times in the past 20 years. For the core area of a big city like Beishangguang, it is not unusual to go up a dozen times. For example, the house in the Beili Community of Shilibao, Chaoyang, Beijing, was sold at the Beijing Evening News in 2000 at a price of 290,000.
Today, the same size of the house has risen to 4.3 million, an increase of more than 1300%.
Comparing the income and prices, the constant train fare is definitely a conscience price.
Even the British are envious
After reading the vertical contrast, let’s compare horizontally. China’s Changchun to Gongzhuling, Japan’s Kakegawa to Toyohashi, the Netherlands’ Amsterdam to Rotterdam, the railway mileage is roughly 60 kilometers.
But the fare is “a world of difference.” The train tickets from Changchun to Gongzhuling are mostly 12.5 yuan, and the cheapest night bus is only 10.5 yuan.
Japan Kakegawa to Toyohashi, the cheapest fare is 79 yuan, the most expensive 199 yuan.
Amsterdam Amsterdam to Rotterdam, the train ticket is priced at 169 yuan.
British office workers protest the price increase of train tickets
British people can’t help but squander the railway industry that “the empire does not fall” in the variety show. At the same time, they still do not forget to envy China.
However, these are not the cheapest trains in China.
353 kilometers, as long as 25 blocks 5
Between Sichuan Xiongpu and Panzhihua, there is a 5633 train, and the hard seat is only 25 blocks.
The train runs in the settlement of the Yi people in Liangshan, Sichuan, LiangshanjingThe interior is complex, with mountains, hills and basins interlaced, the terrain is uneven, the climate is bad, and most places cannot repair roads.
The whole journey is 353 kilometers, with 26 stations and less than 40 kilometers per hour. The 5,633 trains have become the most important contact route for the local people and the outside world, and are the first choice for school, work and life.
The villagers enjoy the convenience of low-cost tickets. In the early morning, the villagers carried agricultural and sideline products on board. In addition to buying tickets, even if they carry heavy agricultural products on the train, they do not have to pay additional fees.
Villagers picking up goods on the bus
Sometimes, the train directly becomes a small agricultural product trading place. More villagers rely on these trains to sell agricultural and sideline products in the field and buy back their daily necessities.
Village in the poverty-stricken train
These trains are also vehicles for children to go to school, and they don’t have to buy tickets.
Children who are going to school on the poverty-stricken train
These public fare trains, which are extremely cheap, help local people to go out of their homes and look for the road to prosperity. They are called “Happy Trains to Spring.” In fact, there are more than 80 pairs of poverty-stricken trains with help in the past, mainly distributed in the remote areas of southwest, northwest and northeast. In areas where traffic is backward and roads are difficult to reach, these railways guard the lives of the people.
Why not raise prices?
Why is the price of Chinese train tickets so cheap and stable? In fact, the so-called 20-year price increase does not mean that price fluctuations have never been implemented. Historically, train tickets have experienced a brief float during the Spring Festival.
2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006 Spring Train Ticketing Float Standards
But since 2007, the train ticket price of the Spring Festival train has no longer implemented the floating system. On the other hand, the length of the Chinese railway is constantly expanding.
At the end of 1949, the national railway operation mileage was only 22,000 kilometers. In 1978, it increased to more than 50,000 kilometers. The national railway network skeleton was basically formed. By the end of 2018, the total mileage of national railway operations reached more than 132,000 kilometers, compared with 1949. The annual growth rate is five times. Behind this is a real investment. In 2019, the total investment in China’s railway construction will reach 850 billion yuan, the highest in history.
According to the operating rules of the market economy, input and output always seem to be an account. However, our “iron boss” seems to be a bit “stupid”. By the first quarter of 2019, the “iron boss” debt climbed to 528.372 billion yuan.
There is a saying that iron has to pay one or two billion yuan in interest for one year. Therefore, among many experts, scholars and netizens, the voice of train tickets should be kept high. For example, Xue Zhaofeng, a professor of economics at Net Red, insisted that train tickets should increase in price. As early as 2001, he pointed out in the article “The train fare is not high enough” that the Spring Festival train ticket is not a rigid demand. After fully raising the price, it will inevitably reduce demand and reduce social waste. In 2010, he published in the “Economic Observer” that the low price of train tickets caused a waste of the country.
Xue Zhaofeng once again emphasized that the train ticket should increase in price when the guest program “Times Dongliang said”
A netizen has calculated an account, and the annual “iron boss” profit is not enough to pay interest on the debt. They believe that price hikes are a way to reverse the status quo. For example, in the Spring Festival of 2018, a total of about 400 million tickets were sold. The price increase of 1 yuan per ticket, the railway sector can increase income by 400 million yuan.
The sound of these proposed price increases does not seem to shake the insistence of the “iron boss.” The country is vigorously developing the railway industry. There are many economic, social, military and other factors behind it, but the convenience and cheapness of people’s travel.It is indeed the result of the financial support of the state. Moreover, the state regards railway transportation as a public service and has the nature of social services. The highest-ranking competent authority has made clear statements on many occasions, and the price of railway transportation is subject to the government-guided price, which is a business that does not implement marketization.
In the end, the country is paying for you.
write at the end
People of every age group have exclusive train memories. After 60, “扒” train, after 70 “catch” the train, after 80 “squeeze” the train, after 90 “sit” the train… time is changing, the train is changing, but the fare of the ordinary train is unchanged, and one Persistence is more than 20 years. Today, the high-speed rail has become a business card in China, with a mileage of 30,000 kilometers, ranking first in the world.
If high-speed rail and motor trains are the choice for fast and comfortable people, then the fast trains are the first choice for ordinary people, especially low-income groups. It helps difficult families to travel in a cheap and convenient way, so that the people in the mountains can solve the difficulty of hiking out and make countless hopeful people come to the big city to realize their dreams.
20 years, train fares do not rise, is the greatest good governance of this era.
Author: positive solutions Board