China Railway Launches May Day Holiday Transport, Expected to Serve 158 Million Passengers

China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) announced that the May Day holiday transportation officially kicked off today, running from April 29 to May 6, a total of 8 days. It is estimated that China Railway will send 158 million passengers during the period, with an average of about 12,000 passenger trains scheduled to operate daily. May 1 is expected to be the peak day of passenger flow, with 24 million passengers to be served. China Railway News reports that the May Day holiday this year has witnessed a surge in travel demand for tourism, family visits and leisure, pushing railway passenger flow to remain at a high level.

A person in charge of the Passenger Transport Center of China Railway stated that the passenger flow during the holiday is expected to be dominated by long-distance trips at the beginning and end, and short-distance trips in the middle. As of 8:00 this morning, China Railway 12306 has sold a total of 83.02 million tickets for the May Day holiday. From the perspective of ticket pre-sale, the top popular departure cities include Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Changsha and Nanjing.

The top popular destination cities are Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Nanjing, Changsha and Xi’an. Passenger flow is concentrated on popular routes such as Beijing-Zhengzhou, Beijing-Shenyang, Beijing-Jinan, Beijing-Taiyuan, Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Xi’an, Beijing-Nanjing, Guangzhou-Wuhan and Guangzhou-Nanning. People’s Daily Online notes that China Railway has always adhered to a people-centered development philosophy, striving to meet the diverse travel needs of passengers and ensure safe, orderly and comfortable trips.

To cope with the peak passenger flow, China Railway has taken a series of measures to increase passenger transport capacity. It has made overall use of line and equipment resources, given play to the advantages of high-speed rail network operation, and implemented a peak-hour train diagram nationwide, planning to operate more than 12,000 passenger trains per day on average. By leveraging big data from Railway 12306 to track passenger flow in real time, it has accurately increased transport capacity in popular areas, routes and time periods during peak hours by adding passenger trains, reconnection of EMU trains and adding carriages to conventional passenger trains, with an average of 156 inter-bureau group passenger trains added daily.

In addition, night high-speed rail trains between inter-bureau groups are arranged on major high-speed rail lines such as Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Harbin from late night to early morning on April 29, April 30, May 1, May 4 and May 5, with an average of about 700 additional trains per day. High-speed rail sleeper trains are also added from April 28 to 30 and May 5 to 7 on routes such as Beijing-Shenzhen, Beijing-Nanning, Shanghai-Guangzhou, Beijing-Sichuan-Guizhou and Shanghai-Sichuan-Guizhou.

China Railway has also launched featured tourist trains to boost the holiday economy, including the "Shangrao Immortal Seeking Train" which made its maiden trip on May 1, as well as the "New Oriental Express", "Starlight Lancang-Mekong", "Panda Special Train Shifang" and "Tianjin Tourism Time" trains. It has also added passenger trains between popular tourist cities and customized "fan trains" to expand new consumption scenarios. China Daily reports that China Railway has also optimized cross-border travel services by operating the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed rail and international passenger trains between China and Laos, Mongolia, Russia, Vietnam and the DPRK.

A series of convenient services have been implemented to improve passengers’ travel experience, including the waitlist ticketing and online seat selection functions on Railway 12306, free ticket refund for wrong purchases within a limited time, and 24-hour services for key passengers. China Railway reminds passengers to purchase tickets through the official Railway 12306 channel and avoid third-party platforms. It also advises passengers to arrange their trips reasonably, reserve sufficient time to enter the station, and travel in a civilized manner to maintain a good travel environment.