Spring Festival Travel Rush to Hit High

The Spring Festival travel rush in China, when hundreds of millions return to their hometowns for family reunions, will peak this week and the Ministry of Railways will deploy 515 more trains to deal with the surge, the Ministry told The Beijing News on Monday.

The Spring Festival, which falls on February 3 this year, is the most important traditional Chinese festival for family reunions. This year's holiday travel peak will be from January 19 to February 27.

Some 230 million trips will be made on China's railway system during the period, up 12.5 percent since last year, according to estimates. Another 2.62 billion trips will be made on other means of transportation, up 11.6 percent.

Beijing West Railway Station told the Beijing News that during the week before Spring Festival, from this Wednesday to the February 1, the station will reach the peak of transportation. Especially during the period from January 30 to February 1, the station's volume of passenger transportation in a single day could total a record high of 270,000.

To cater for the festival travel rush, the Ministry said on Monday that it planed to deploy 515 more temporary trains around China.

The Ministry also recruited more than 12,000 young volunteers to work at 96 key railway stations.

Meanwhile, the Ministry employed over 1,000 social inspectors, such as deputies of people's congress, members of CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) and news reporters to supervise the Spring Festival travel rush.

(CRIENGLISH.com January 25, 2011)