Passengers are pictured at Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 14, 2025. The Spring Festival travel rush of this year started on Tuesday and will last til Feb. 22. (Xinhua/Xu Hongyan)
BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- With an estimated record 9 billion passenger trips in 40 days, the 2025 Spring Festival travel rush is set to serve as a testament to China's impressive ability to withstand overwhelming traffic pressure.
Known as the world's largest population migration once a year, the travel surge, or chunyun, poses challenges in ensuring smooth traffic flow, maintaining safety, mitigating adverse weather impacts, and coordinating passenger and cargo transport.
To get a sense of the intensity of the year's chunyun, one might turn to some railway operation data: over 14,000 passenger trains will run daily. Before the travel season started on Tuesday, a total of 185 new bullet trains were put into service nationwide, capable of reaching speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour.
China's 48,000 km of operational high-speed rail, the world's longest, is seeing tireless development efforts, with new routes running near or through populous cities in a bid to provide more and faster travel options.
To meet the public's need for safe and speedy trips, smart services have been widely put into use. These include tailored options like automatic ticketing and special booking for college students on winter vacation and migrant workers returning home from work locations. Railway authorities, meanwhile, use data from the official booking site to adjust train schedules and boost capacity on popular routes, thereby ensuring that diverse needs are met.
An aerial drone photo shows cars driving onto a ro-ro ship for new energy vehicles at Xiuying Port in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, on Jan. 14, 2025. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu)
Another bright spot on the roads is the growing use of new energy vehicles (NEVs) -- clear evidence of a shift towards greener travel options in China.
To accommodate the travel surge, highway service areas are promoting ultra-fast charging stations and introducing intelligent solutions such as charging robots, with 97 percent of highway service areas now offering charging facilities, making driving an NEV more attractive for travelers.
Of special significance is also the increased use of the domestically-manufactured C919 aircraft, a symbol of China's technological and industrial advancement, during the 2025 Spring Festival travel rush.
Chunyun is not only about homecoming. This year's chunyun is expected to see a sharp increase in the number of international travelers, driven by China's expansion of visa-free policies and the introduction of even more measures to streamline entry for foreigners.
Through chunyun, the world can witness a China that showcases remarkable economic vitality, cultural preservation, technological advancement, and growing exchanges with the outside world.
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