China Travel
Passenger numbers are steadily increasing across China's transport networks as the Spring Festival travel rush begins under optimized COVID-19 prevention and control measures.
The Spring Festival, also known as the Lunar or Chinese New Year, traditionally sees such large numbers of travelers that it is considered the largest annual human migration worldwide. This year's seven-day Spring Festival holiday starts from January 21, with the corresponding travel rush continuing for 40 days from January 7 to February 15.
Pre-sales of railway tickets for the 2023 Spring Festival travel rush, which started on December 24, 2022, show passenger numbers recovering, according to the China State Railway Group.
With about 11 percent more capacity added since 2019, China's rail network can move over 9 million passengers on over 6,000 trains every day.
The number of people driving to their destinations is also expected to increase during the festival period, according to the Ministry of Transport.
The ministry predicted that about 31 million private vehicles a day will be on the roads during the holiday, an increase of about 3.4 percent compared to the travel rush period in 2022. January 27 and February 6 are expected to be the busiest days on the roads, with the Ministry of Transport predicting traffic numbers at the beginning of the holiday may hit record highs.
China's civil aviation sector is also seeing an increase in demand with travel peaks expected before and after the week-long holiday and after the Lantern Festival, which falls on February 5 this year.
An average of 11,000 passenger flights will fly every day during the holiday, about three quarters of the number that flew in 2019, with flight bookings expected to peak between January 18 and January 20.
Boat travel is also seeing a steady recovery, with 450,000 passengers transported by boat nationwide on the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush, with more expected as the holiday approaches, according to the Ministry of Transport's Maritime Safety Administration.
Passenger and cargo flow on boats crossing the Qiongzhou Strait between south China's Guangdong Province and the island province of Hainan has been increasing with approximately 3.25 million passengers entering and leaving the island, a year-on-year increase of 27.5 percent.
In the Bohai Strait, the Ministry of Transport also carried out joint sea-air cruises, focusing on the inspection and rectification of navigation environment, ship traffic order and maritime auxiliary facilities along various key inter-provincial passenger routes and land-island transport lines.
On Sunday, Shenzhen City in south China's Guangdong Province fully resumed ferry services and customs clearance for passengers traveling to the two special administrative regions (SARs) of Hong Kong and Macao, with Shenzhen maritime departments conducting special safety inspections for high-speed ferries.
"The safety inspection mainly checks the ship's navigation equipment, fire-fighting equipment and life-saving equipment. At the same time, we also organized the crew to conduct emergency drills to ensure that the crew's emergency response capabilities meet the requirements, strengthen the frequency of water patrols on the recommended routes of high-speed passenger ships, and promptly remove obstacles on the route," said Zhang Xiaobo, captain of the sea patrol law enforcement brigade of Baoan Maritime Safety Administration.