railway-12306_skill

Overview

This skill is a Chinese railway 12306 ticket query assistant that finds suitable train options quickly. It returns real-time seat availability, price comparisons across dates, and smart recommendations (fastest, cheapest, direct, or transfer). The skill also converts station names to 12306 codes and offers lunar-holiday reminders to avoid travel spikes.

How this skill works

The skill extracts travel parameters (origin, destination, date or date range, and preferences) and maps station names to 12306 three-letter codes with fuzzy matching. It calls the public 12306 left-ticket query API to fetch train lists, parses seat types and availability, then ranks and filters results for recommendations. For lunar-date inputs it converts to Gregorian dates and highlights holiday-related travel advice.

When to use it

• When you need real-time seat availability for high-speed, EMU, or conventional trains
• When comparing prices across multiple dates to pick the cheapest travel day
• When you want an automatically recommended train by speed, price, or direct route
• When you only know a city name and need station code disambiguation
• When planning travel around lunar holidays and needing date conversion reminders

Best practices

• Provide origin, destination and date (or date range) in the query for precise results
• Use specific station names if a city has multiple stations (e.g., Beijing South)
• Limit query frequency to one request every 3 seconds to avoid API throttling
• Ask for preferences (fastest, cheapest, direct) to get tailored recommendations
• Confirm station when multiple matches are returned to avoid wrong routing

Example use cases

• Find tomorrow’s available trains and seat counts from Lishui to Shanghai with recommended options
• Compare ticket prices across three dates to pick the most economical travel day
• Get the earliest-arrival train on a target weekday (e.g., 'Friday, fastest arrival')
• Convert a lunar date like 'first month eighth day' to Gregorian and search that period
• Suggest transfer routes when no direct seats are available and recommend best alternatives