East China’s Jiangsu province is bracing for the spring festival travel rush that has begun on January 21 and lasts until March 1st.
The provincial department of transportation predicts that 609.2 million trips will be made in the province during the spring festival with obvious growth in railway and air travel and remarkable decline in highway travel.
In order to ensure convenient holiday travel, Nanjing Railway Station and Nanjing South Railway Station have launched full-process self-service ticket purchase, ticket check and exit by requiring the passengers to swipe their face so as to reduce the time spent on waiting in line.
Nanjing South Railway Station also opened a newly built passenger service center to integrate all matters into a one-stop service for the interaction between the station authority, 12306 train ticket purchase website and passengers online and offline interoperability. Passengers can seek help from the service center in case of emergencies.
Monday marks the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush, as is evidenced by the steady road traffic volume across the province. The Sutong Yangtze River Bridge saw a two-way traffic volume of 100,000 on Monday.
Coach terminals across the province also witnessed surging passenger volumes with college students and migrant workers making up the bulk of the travelers. Main destinations include Shanxi, Anhui, Henan and the northern part of Jiangsu province.
The coach terminal in Nanning opened a shuttle bus of about 30 shifts to transport passengers to the destinations where migrant workers come from.
The peak of air travel is expected to come one week before New Year's Eve. Nanjing Lukou International Airport is expected to see its passenger arrivals and departures to increase by 10% year on year.
The Spring Festival Travel Rush, also known as Chunyun and Chunyun Migration in Chinese, or Chinese New Year Travel Rush, Lunar New Year Travel Rush is the largest human migration on earth happening annually. It usually begins 15 days ahead of the Chinese New Year and 25 days after, lasting for 40 days. The Chunyun 2019 lasts from January 21 to March 1. During the Spring Festival Rush, China, especially its railway system, faces an extremely high traffic load, which results in great difficulties to obtain a ticket, crowded railway stations and train carriages.
