Railway police ensure smooth travel for Spring Festival

Railway police have adopted measures to ensure a smooth and safe journey for Chinese travellers during China's holiday travel rush, the largest annual human migration on earth, which began on Thursday.

About 3.62 billion trips will be made across China during the 40-day travel rush around the Spring Festival, or Chinese lunar new year, which falls on Jan. 31. Nearly 258 million Chinese are expected to travel by rail during the period.

Railway police have reinforced crackdowns on train ticket scalping. They have strengthened patrols at train stations and ticket offices and will pay special attention to suspicious group ticket purchasers, according to a statement from the railway police authorities.

The police have also set up special forces targeting online scalping, monitoring irregular transactions and seizing scalpers who use "ticket snatching" plugins to acquire a large number of tickets online and resell them at a high price.

They began a nationwide inspection of fire hazards two weeks ago to check every passenger train and carriage in operation and supervise railway staff in overhauling equipment found to pose fire hazards, the statement said.

Railway police have conducted drills for emergencies and extreme weather, which could leave thousands of passengers stranded during the travel rush, according to the statement.