China's Spring Festival travel rush begins with record 9 billion trips expected

KICKING INTO GEAR

This year, road trips are expected to dominate the annual travel rush, accounting for about 80 percent of all inter-regional journeys. An estimated 7.2 billion road trips are projected, with highways likely to experience record-breaking single-day traffic peaks.

The rise of carpooling has also become evident on Chinese social media platforms. On the Xiaohongshu lifestyle app, posts marked with the hashtag "carpooling home for Spring Festival" have garnered over 5.6 million views and nearly 180,000 comments.

New energy vehicles (NEVs) are set to be a key feature of this year's homeward journeys. As of November 2024, a total of 33,100 charging stations have been installed across the country's highway service areas, with 97 percent of these areas now equipped with charging facilities, according to Gao Bo, an official of the Ministry of Transport.

To accommodate the travel surge, highway service areas are promoting ultrafast charging stations, optimizing placement based on traffic volume, and introducing intelligent solutions such as charging robots, Gao said.

China's railway and civil aviation authorities have also increased travel capacities to ensure smoother transportation.

Over 510 million passenger trips will be handled by the country's railways during the period, with an average of 12.75 million trips daily, an increase of 5.5 percent compared with the previous year. About 10.3 million train trips are expected to be made on Tuesday.

China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. plans to operate more than 14,000 passenger trains daily, providing an additional 500,000 seats per day. Ahead of the Spring Festival travel rush, a total of 185 new Fuxing bullet trains have been put into service nationwide, capable of reaching speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour.

On Tuesday, Shenyang railway station was abuzz with activity as travelers bustled through the halls, many rolling suitcases and some laden with gifts for family reunions.

"Although it is only the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush, the daily passenger flow has already hit 53,000," said Cai Jiakun, who works at the railway station.

Meanwhile, China's civil aviation sector is set to handle a record of 90 million passenger trips during the holiday travel season. The sector will operate an average of 18,500 flights per day, an 8.4 percent increase from 2024.