Rail service ramps up for Qingming Festival

China's railway operator said on Sunday that travels peaked at about 3.95 million on Friday, just ahead of the three-day Tomb Sweeping Day holiday that started Saturday.

The travel rush came as new infections of the novel coronavirus pneumonia have significantly dropped on the Chinese mainland, which has prompted authorities to lift travel bans aimed at curbing the spread of the pathogen.

The State-owned China State Railway Group Co said that Friday was the busiest day for China's railway network since the Spring Festival in late January.

The number slightly dipped to 3.88 million on Saturday－the first day of the three-day holiday, the company said.

Though among the heaviest daily workload since January, the travel figures were dwarfed by figures recorded during the same time last year, when 15.23 million train trips were recorded on the first day of the holiday of Tomb Sweeping Day, also known as Qingming Festival.

To handle the rise of passengers this year, the Beijing-based railway conglomerate said an average of 260 trains were added daily.

To meet the needs of ancestor worshippers during Qingming, the company said its division in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, added 73 trains linking the provincial capital with Baoji to its west and Huangling county to its north.

The two places are homes to the burial sites of Emperor Yan and Huang, two legendary ancient Chinese rulers known as ancestors of the Chinese nation.

Apart from celebrating filial piety by tidying up ancestors' tombs, Qingming is also a popular time for springtime sightseeing.

Railway divisions in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, arranged more than 30 trains to meet the travel demands from people who had only recently stepped out of home isolation.

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which surfaced in Hubei province in December, interrupted Chinese Lunar New Year festivities and crippled many intercity travel and urban public transportation networks across the country.

Travel bans have played a pivotal role in slowing the spread of the epidemic but have also taken a toll on social activities.

As the epidemic abates domestically, central authorities have worked to revive social life and economic activity in big cities, and public transportation is seen as a crucial component of this effort.

According to the Ministry of Transport, by Friday urban public transportation had been fully restored in all provincial regions on the Chinese mainland－except for Hubei province, which was heavily ravaged by the epidemic.

That means bus, taxi and car-hailing services in all counties of these regions have resumed, as well as subway systems in 41 cities, according to the ministry.