Targeted COVID-19 Response: GBase Enables CARS' 12306 Ticket Big Data System to Trace Close Contacts

Amid the severe COVID-19 pandemic, epidemic prevention and control is a top priority. The most challenging task has been identifying close contacts infected through travel. Many governments are leveraging big data and other cutting-edge technologies to stop the spread. GBASE's GBase 8a MPP distributed database has played a critical role in efficiently analyzing and querying massive passenger data at the 12306 National Railway Ticket System Monitoring Center of China Academy of Railway Sciences Corporation Limited (CARS).
 

As many confirmed patients had traveled by train, quickly identifying close contacts is crucial to curb the spread and has been a top priority for 12306 recently. In this race against time, leveraging big data to fight the pandemic, the 12306 National Railway Ticket System Monitoring Center of CARS has continuously received coordination letters from various provinces requesting data assistance for screening.

To address the outbreak, CARS set up a dedicated epidemic analysis technology team alongside the 12306 ticketing system team. They quickly developed various query tools. Supported by the GBase 8a MPP database, query results are delivered in milliseconds, drastically reducing the time needed to trace close contacts.

In 2017, the new-generation ticketing and electronic payment platform system upgrade project of CARS adopted a GBase 8a MPP database cluster as the big data platform for ticket analysis. It effectively supports hundreds of terabytes of data for the 12306 ticketing system, providing robust support for railway ticket query and statistical analysis.

To handle this year's Spring Festival travel rush, General Data Technology upgraded the GBase 8a MPP database cluster at CARS. In response to the need for epidemic data screening, the company collaborated with CARS to develop corresponding ticket query and epidemic statistical analysis functions, playing a vital role in processing and analyzing massive data during the travel season and the pandemic.

In the process of querying close contacts in the 12306 ticketing system for epidemic screening, analysis must be performed on hundreds of terabytes of data. This ticket data comprises approximately 1,000 tables, with the largest table containing about 23 billion records. The GBase 8a MPP database efficiently supports fast queries of this data.

After introducing the GBase 8a MPP analytical database cluster into the 12306 ticket analysis system, query and analysis performance improved by at least 10 times. Queries that previously took minutes—or even over ten minutes—can now be completed in just seconds, or even milliseconds.

Facing this severe situation, this rapid and accurate big data screening method has effectively advanced epidemic prevention and control. GBASE (General Data Technology) will continue to provide robust big data product support for customers across industries to precisely combat the spread of the pandemic.