National Day travelers ready for rush
The Palace Museum in Beijing [Photo/Xinhua] |
With the weeklong National Day holiday just around the corner, massive domestic migration will soon begin, causing heavy traffic jams, packed trains and long lines at airports.
Travel records are expected to be broken again this vacation period as increasingly prosperous, holiday-happy Chinese travelers pack tourism sites at home and abroad.
More than 660 million trips will be made by road and water during the upcoming holiday, a slight increase over the same period last year, Xu Chengguang, spokesman of the Ministry of Transport, said Wednesday. Xu's agency regulates those methods of travel.
China's fast-growing railway network is expected to log 110 million train trips, up by 11.3 percent year-on-year, China Railway Corp estimated on Wednesday. The peak of the railway rush will be Oct 1, when 14.2 million train trips are expected.
Air travel regulators were mum, but expect the skies to be just as busy.
While vacations are wonderful, hundreds of millions of people leaving for vacation at the same time can be stressful.
On Sept 30, evening rush hour will start an average of two and a half hours early in Chinese cities, according to a report by Didi Chuxing, China's biggest car-on-demand service. The average time to get to railway stations and airports in major cities will increase by more than 20 percent, the report said.