Return passenger flow peaks as holiday ends

Today is the first working day after the week-long Spring festival holiday. railway stations, highways and airports across China are witnessing a peak in return passenger flows. Beijing alone is expected to see more than 530,000 people returning by railway today.

The world’s largest annual human migration has come to its middle point, as millions start their first day back at work after a week-long holiday.

Data from the Ministry of transport shows nearly 1.4 billion trips have been made during the first half of this year’s Spring Festival travel season, an increase of 3.3 percent from the same period one year ago.

To be exact, that is 150 million trips by rail, and about 25 million trips by air, while roads and expressways across the country witnessed nearly 1.2 billion trips.

On Saturday alone, the last day of the holiday, the country’s railway network received a record number of passengers, more than 10 million.

More travelers this year have opted for high-speed rail to get back to their jobs just in time. In Guiyang, capital city of the southwestern province of Guizhou, bullet trains’ departures from the station have overtaken those of regular trains for the first time. 

Railway and air departments have both increased the number of services to cope with the travel rush. And bad weather is adding difficulties to the journey. Highways were forced to shut down because of heavy fog or slippery conditions caused by freezing weather as a cold front hit a major part of the northern regions.

The post-holiday travel rush started Friday. There will be another two travel peaks in the next 10 days, as migrant workers and students return to the big cities.