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China expects 2.8 bln passenger trips for Spring Festival

2011-12-23 15:46    Ecns.cn    

Beijing (CNS) – China expects 2.845 billion passenger trips by road during the upcoming Spring Festival travel rush from roughly January 8 to February 16, and that would be up 9.5 percent over last year, says the Transport Ministry.

Zhu Jialin, deputy director of policies and regulations at the Transport Ministry concedes the first factor his division has to adjust for is the huge volume of passengers and the annual pressures put on all forms of transportation, especially in the first few days of the season. Secondly, severe weather patterns common to most parts of China at this time of year make for unsafe conditions on roads and highways.

Some 840,000 large and medium sized coaches will put into use during the festival, said Zhu, adding that more than 2.6 million coaches will pull out of their stations each day of the holiday.