China’s railway system is demonstrating unprecedented capacity during the annual Spring Festival travel period, with official data revealing extraordinary passenger volumes. The national 12306 ticketing platform has processed approximately 140 million train ticket sales as of Saturday morning, according to China State Railway Group Co Ltd.
The massive migration phenomenon, known locally as ‘chunyun,’ continues to break records with the national railway network handling 12.845 million passenger journeys on Friday alone. This marks the fifth consecutive day that daily passenger trips have exceeded the 10 million threshold, highlighting the immense scale of holiday travel.
Projections for Saturday indicate even higher numbers, with an estimated 13.8 million passenger trips anticipated nationwide. To accommodate this surge, railway authorities have deployed 1,249 additional trains strategically across the network. The comprehensive approach includes real-time monitoring of passenger flows through advanced big data analytics, allowing for dynamic adjustments to transportation capacity on high-demand routes.
The current 40-day travel rush period is expected to witness a historic 9.5 billion inter-regional passenger trips throughout China. Railway services are projected to handle approximately 540 million of these journeys, representing a significant portion of the nation’s total holiday transportation burden. Service enhancements and capacity optimization measures have been implemented system-wide to ensure smooth and efficient travel experiences during this peak period.