Special Report: Spring Festival Special 2009

    BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- About 192 million rail trips will be made over the 40-day Spring Festival travel period which will end Thursday, up 10.6 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Railways (MOR).

    The number of trips during the period known as chunyun is more than 2 percent, or 4 million, higher than earlier MOR estimates of188 million.

    As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, 187 million tickets had been sold. The busiest day was Feb. 14, when the railways carried 5.93 million passengers.

    MOR spokesman Wang Yongping on Thursday attributed the increase to better preparations and favorable weather conditions.

    "The MOR suspended more cargo trains in favor of passenger trains, reduced short-distance services for long-distance services, and redeployed more trains to increase capacity," he said.

    "The weather was favorable in most of China this year and 99 percent of the trains arrived on schedule," he said.

    During the chunyun period, the MOR relocated more than 27,600 trains from local depots for temporary use, an increase of more than 4,000 trains from the same period last year.

    UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN

    "Uncertainties remain after the chunyun period as a lot of migrant workers are still looking for jobs," Wang said.

    Many export-oriented companies in coastal provinces, such as Guangdong and Zhejiang, have closed due to the economic downturn, leaving 20 million migrant workers without jobs.

    "Some migrant workers postponed their trips and some are traveling constantly in labor-intensive regions, which prolonged the travel-peak. Short-distance trips have increased significantly," Wang said.

    "Migrant job-seekers coupled with students returning to school have driven up demand for railway tickets after the chunyun period," he said.

    Since the seven-day Spring Festival holiday that ended on Jan. 31, the MOR has redeployed 18,300 trains, more than 2,100 trains than the same period last year, to increase capacity.

    A PROMISING FUTURE

    The MOR has promised another five passenger lines by the end of this year: the Wuhan-Guangzhou, Zhengzhou-Xi'an, Ningbo-Taizhou-Wenzhou, Wenzhou-Fuzhou and Fuzhou-Xiamen lines.

    These will add a total of 2,264 kilometers of routes.

    In January, the Railways Minister Liu Zhijun foresaw a "historic change" by 2012 when intensive investment would be made to extend track mileage to 110,000 kilometers.

    It is an increase of 31,000 kilometers from the current 79,000 kilometers, including 13,000 kilometers of passenger lines on which trains could run between 200 to 350 kilometers per hour.

    "As more railways go into operation, the transportation bottleneck will be eased," Wang said.