China has seen an annual increase of 27.3% in rail passenger trips taken during the 15 days leading up to this year’s Spring Festival, which falls on Sunday, according to the national rail operator.
Between January 7th and 21st, 109.5 million trips were made by train, 23.5 million more than last year’s pre-holiday period, data from China State Railway Group Co., Ltd shows.
For the past two years, most Chinese have stayed where they were for the holiday amid restrictions in place to stop the transmission of the SARS-Cov2 virus, but the country’s changes in response to COVID-19 have brought a change.
The total number of passenger trips for this year’s 40-day Spring Festival run, which began on Jan. 7, is expected to reach 2.1 billion, nearly double last year’s, or 70.3% of the reading. 2019, according to the Ministry of Transport.
The growing travel demand is a result of the recent reduction of the Chinese classification of the COVID-19 management from Class A to Class B. Under the Class B management, travelers are no longer required to present health codes and negative nucleic acid test results or undergo temperature checks when entering train stations and airports.
