Spring Festival travel rush sets new record

Nearly 3 billion trips were made during the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush between Jan 13 and Feb 21, marking a new record of human migration during the Spring Festival travel rush, the Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday.

Of these, 2.52 billion trips were made by road, 357 million trips were made by railway, and 58.55 million trips were made by air.

Online ticket sales have become the top method for purchasing travel tickets, the ministry said.

Online tickets users for train, bus and flight travel were 71.9, 56.6 and 71.9 percent, respectively. More than 80 percent of travelers booked tickets via mobile phone apps.

Transfer is more convenient, the ministry said.

About 80 percent of trips were short trips, within 500 km. The average travel distance was 335.18 km. The top 10 migration cities were Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Dongguan, Suzhou, Chongqing, Zhengzhou and Foshan.

Nearly 71 percent of passengers were satisfied with their Spring Festival travel, 2 percent more compared to last year. Eighty-nine percent of passengers said it is more convenient to buy tickets. Ninety-three percent of passengers said they were satisfied with the cabin crew's performance on planes.

One of the world's busiest airport, Beijing Capital International Airport, carried out 67,000 flights, completing 10.84 million trips during the rush.

There were 357 million trips made by railway, a rise of 10.1 percent compared to last year, marking a new record of train trips during the Spring Festival travel rush, China Railway Corp said on Wednesday.

Of these journeys, 51.4 percent of train trips were carried out by high-speed railway, which means that 180 million trips were made by bullet trains.

The daily peak of train trips was 10.97 million on Feb 2.

By 2016, China's high-speed rail network had reached 20,000 km.