According to the Guangdong research report on the reason and solutions of 2008 spring festival transport, the household registration system is the root cause of the crisis. Migrant workers find it difficult to obtain the local Hukou where they work. In addition to low pay, there exist some inequalities in their opportunities, treatment and welfare of employment. Such crisis arising from “homesickness” will emerge unless changes occur on the registration system. Therefore, in order to prevent this, the authorities should give farmers "national treatment" through such means as revising the household registration system by eliminating the distinction between rural and urban registers.
Reason: unbalanced regional economy
The report revealed that the problem of travel peak in lunar New Year resulted from the unbalanced development in regional economy. Most of industries featuring labor-intensive concentrate in the eastern coastal areas. With one third of the floating population nationwide, spring festival transportation put considerable pressure on the rail network, which was just paralyzed snow storms. Take this year for example. The crisis, bought on by the combination of the worst snow havoc in half a century and power cuts caused by energy shortage, has coincided with China’s peak travel season, the lunar New Year. Obviously, striking balance among regional economy is the top priority to reverse this embarrassing situation.
Analysis: the vulnerability of emergency response system
The top emergency could not be accessible to the public after the snow disaster occurred. Weather forecast and transport network did not connect with the ticket-booking system, thus failing to spread message to passengers in time.
Suggestion: strengthen the capability of emergency supply and mobilization
It is urgent to beef up the ability of emergency supply and mobilization in response to public crisis. First of all, sufficient energy and material preserve, say, water, medicine and so on, should be taken into consideration. Secondly, we should assure the interaction of emergency systems between government and enterprises and diversify the social obligation of various enterprises. Therefore, once the public crisis occurs, government should launch emergency disaster-relief schemes to help the affected people.
