Train services put to test by travel peak at end of National Day holidays

Train services faced heavy pressure with over 15 million passengers on the last day of China’s Golden Week holiday, with a total passenger traffic hitting 100 million during the holiday, reports said.

Nationwide train services were expected to handle a peak of 15.2 million passengers on Sunday, the end of the seven-day holiday in China, Shanghaibased news website thepaper.cn reported on Sunday.

A total of 741 extra trains would be used to cope with Sunday’s volume, the report said.

Trains have carried a total of more than 100 million passengers during the National Day holiday,s the People’s Daily reported, citing the China Railway Corporation.

An increase in the number of passengers on trains began on Saturday, when about 13.8 million people rode on trains, 1.4 million more than the same day last year. Altogether 8,693 trains were used, including an additional 741 trains.

A total of 2.5 million people traveled from Shanghai by train on Saturday, 8.9 percent more than last year. Beijing trains carried 1.24 million people, an 11.7 percent increase over last year, thepaper. cn reported.

With 580,000 people expected to return to Beijing on Sunday, local authorities have increased the number of staff at subways, bus stations and taxi pick-up points.

The Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday that 33 extra trains will be operating at Beijing’s three major train stations to meet the demand on Sunday.

Many media platforms also published a “memo to prevent traffic jams” in major cities, including Chengdu in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province and Nanning in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, since Saturday to suggest alternate routes.

Sina Weibo carried a livestreaming on Sunday on the traffic situation around 3:00 pm at toll gates along highways in places like Chengdu, Guangzhou and Xi’an, where expressways “have become parking lots.”

Henan provincial authorities issued an alert on heavy traffic on Sunday, and identified seven expressway sections where motorists could encounter heavy traffic.