Rail authorities in the Yangtze River Delta region are offering discount tickets for return bullet trains with few passengers during the chunyun, or Spring Festival travel rush, for the first time, xinhuanet.com reported.

The move is intended to ease transportation pressure and encourage more passengers to travel against the flow during the travel rush, the Shanghai Railway Bureau said.

Outbound passengers greatly outnumber inbound passengers before Spring Festival, while after Spring Festival it's the other way around. Rail authorities in the Yangtze River Delta region offered discount tickets for practically empty return regular trains to passengers during last year's chunyun and bullet trains joined the initiative this year.

A total of eight bullet trains and 15 regular trains will offer passengers preferential ticket prices, with a discount of up to 45 percent.

It's estimated the railway network in the Yangtze River Delta region will transport 79.6 million passengers during the 2020 Spring Festival travel rush, up 6.2 percent year-on-year. The railways in the region are expected to handle 1.99 million passengers per day.

The Spring Festival travel rush for 2020 will last 40 days from Friday to Feb 18.