China Railway Maintains High Passenger Volume During Holiday, with Scheduled Additional Trains
China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. announced that 19.781 million passengers were transported by national railways on May 2, marking the third consecutive day after April 30 and May 1 that the single-day passenger volume exceeded 19 million. The transportation process was safe and orderly, with smooth and efficient operation throughout the day.
During the holiday period, travel demand for family visits, tourism and leisure remains strong, keeping railway passenger flow at a high level. According to ticket pre-sale data, the top 10 popular departure cities on May 3 include Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Changsha. Correspondingly, the top popular destination cities are Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Nanjing, Zhengzhou and Chongqing. Passenger flow is relatively concentrated on popular routes such as Shenzhen-Hong Kong round trips, Changsha-Wuhan round trips, Xi'an-Chengdu round trips, Guangzhou-Hong Kong, Nanning-Guangzhou, Changchun-Harbin and Beijing-Shenyang.
China News Service reported that railway departments in various regions have carefully organized holiday passenger transportation to meet the surging travel needs. Railway bureaus have increased capacity investment on popular tourist routes, with some arranging special trains tailored to specific needs. For instance, Chengdu Railway Bureau Group has boosted transportation capacity on routes including the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway, the new Chengdu-Kunming Railway and the Zhengzhou-Chongqing High-Speed Railway, and has operated special fan trains from Chengdu to Luzhou.
To enhance passenger experience, Kunming Railway Bureau Group has taken humanized measures at Mohan Station. In conjunction with customs and border inspection departments, it has opened "green channels" for passengers with limited mobility and increased seating in the inbound joint inspection waiting area. Urumqi Railway Bureau Group has arranged special tourist trains from Urumqi to Kashgar, Kuqa, Altay and other places, and set up "My Railway Scenery" themed check-in areas at some stations to invite passengers to record the happy scenes of "traveling around Xinjiang by train."
Looking ahead to May 3, national railways are expected to transport 18.55 million passengers. To cope with the continuous high passenger flow, railway departments plan to add 923 passenger trains, optimizing the operation plan based on real-time passenger flow changes. Xinhua News Agency noted that the 8-day May Day holiday transportation, which started on April 29 and ends on May 6, is expected to see a total of 158 million railway passengers nationwide, with an average of about 120,000 passenger trains operating daily.
Railway departments have fully utilized big data from the 12306 ticketing system to track passenger flow in real time, adopting measures such as adding trains, reconnection of EMU trains and adding carriages during peak periods to accurately deploy transportation capacity. Night high-speed trains have also been arranged on major high-speed rail lines such as Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Harbin, with an average of about 700 additional night trains per day, easing the tension of ticket supply on popular routes during the day.
