BEIJING: China’s summer travel season, which concluded on Saturday, saw record-breaking passenger numbers, China State Railway Group, the national railway operator, said. From July 1 to Aug 31, the railway network facilitated 887 million passenger trips, a 6.7 percent increase from last year.
The network saw an average of 14.31 million passenger trips per day, a new high for the summer season. From Aug 10 to 12, the system handled more than 16 million passengers each day. The railway network also transported 670 million metric tons of freight in the past two months, maintaining robust freight operations, the group said.
This year’s summer travel saw a surge in passengers, driven by university students leaving campuses, tourists, and travelers visiting family. To accommodate demand, the railway department optimized train schedules and expanded both high-speed and regular-speed train services. An average of 10,905 passenger trains operated each day — an increase of 636 trains, or 6.2 percent more than last year. Railway authorities utilized data from the 12306 ticketing system to dynamically adjust operations, including adding extra trains and carriages, and running double sets of high-speed trains during peak times and on popular routes.
Cross-border passenger transport also saw significant growth. The China-Laos Railway handled 45,600 cross-border passengers, up 78.1 percent year-on-year, and the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway saw 5.18 million crossings, a year-on-year increase of 10.7 percent. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
