Enhanced efforts for smooth festival travel rush

China will take a slew of measures to ensure a smooth Spring Festival travel rush, a senior official said.

Lian Weiliang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a news conference on Jan 31 that about 2.98 billion trips are expected to be made during the 2018 Spring Festival travel rush, which is also known as chunyun, between Feb 1 and March 12. He said the figure is basically the same as that of last year.

He said transportation authorities are prepared for the travel rush.

To enhance the railway transportation capability, an additional 1,152 to 1,330 train services will be scheduled before and after the festival respectively, on the basis of 3,819 operating trains every day, according to Li Wenxin with China Railway Corp.