On the first day of Spring Festival travel season from Feb. 3 to
March 14 this year, transportation across China is in good
order.
China's railway transport authorities calculated that 3.3
million passengers traveled by train, with the service of 383
temporary trains on Saturday, said Zhang Zhenli, an official with
the Ministry of Railways who is in charge of the seasonal
transport.
As this winter vacation for college students comes earlier than
previous years, most of 9.6 million students have already returned
home, which greatly alleviated transport strains, according to
figures from the ministry.
Now that train ticket prices will not rise this year as they
usually did during the Spring Festival, many people have delayed
their travel plans, said Zhang.
For years China adopted the policy of raising ticket prices
during the Spring Festival travel season to help ease travel
peaks.
During the Spring Festival travel season last year, railway
fares for ordinary hard seats increased 15 percent while those for
other seats went up 20 percent. Many passengers had to leave before
the start of the travel season to avoid price hikes.
"The queue only took me 20 minutes to buy train tickets," said a
lady surnamed Qing, who bought 23 tickets for some migrant workers
in Beijing ,who will return to Guangyuan in southwest Sichuan Province.
So far almost 60,000 migrant workers have booked rail tickets in
groups from Beijing's railway stations, much more than previous
year.
The Ministry of Communications expects the increase number of
coach passengers to reach 115 million during the period.
Some 700,000 coaches, which can carry 280 million people more
than last year, will be on the road during the travel season, the
ministry said.
In the waiting hall of the Liuliqiao coach station in Beijing,
some chairs were unoccupied on Saturday.
"Passengers here are still one third more than the previous
days," said Su Jingfang, a cleaner working in the waiting hall.
Millions of Chinese, including migrant workers, college students
and others working far away from their hometowns, rush home for a
family reunion during Spring Festival each year, an important
occasion for Chinese homes.
For years, the nation's transportation system has been strained
in the festival season, as millions of migrant workers and other
Chinese flock back home and then return to the work place in just
two or three weeks.
Qinghai-Tibet railway to have first passenger
peak
?
The Qinghai-Tibet railway, dubbed the railway on the "roof of
the world", is proving to be stiff competition for regional bus
companies and it's encouraging a lot more people to go home for the
Spring Festival holidays.
Some 2,400 to 2,500 people were expected to board the four
passenger trains leaving Lhasa on Saturday for Beijing, Shanghai,
southwest China's Chongqing and Xining, capital of northwest
China's Qinghai Province.
Ticket sales for the festival period have jumped 30 percent and
seats on the trains are 80 percent sold.
"I haven't seen my parents for five or six years," said Xiang
Yong who is from Deyang City in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
He moved to Lhasa more than 10 years ago and married a local woman
named Lhaba Zhoima in 1994.
Before the railway opened last July, Xiang would have to spent
700 to 800 yuan for a bus ticket and take a grueling journey of
four or five days to get home.
"Now it takes only two days to travel from Tibet to Sichuan by
train," he smiled, adding that the price of a train ticket is about
half the cost of bus fare.
Xiang Dong's son, named Cewang in Tibetan and Xiang Dong in
mandarin, is two and a half years' old, and this will be his first
visit to his grandparents' home who will "be delighted to see him,
" said Xiang.
As so many people are opting for train travel to and from Lhasa,
the regional bus business is starting to suffer.
According to the person in charge of the west suburb
long-distance bus station who declined to be named, the number of
passengers during the Spring Festival transport peak had dipped 70
percent this year. The number of long-distance buses from Tibet to
Xining and Chengdu have been cut from 10 to just one or two.
(Xinhua News Agency February 4, 2007)
