China expects 9.5 billion cross-regional passenger trips in Spring Festival travel rush

Spring Festival travel rush started on Monday, 15 days ahead of the Spring Festival, or the Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb 17 this year.

This year's travel rush is scheduled to run through March 13, with inter-regional trips expected to hit a record 9.5 billion.

According to authorities, the railway system is expected to handle 540 million trips during the 40-day period, with an average daily passenger trips reaching 13.48 million, a year-on-year increase of 5 percent.

As of 16:00 Sunday, a total of 64.61 million train tickets had been sold since pre-sales began on January 19 for the travel rush period.

At 00:40 on Monday, Beijing launched its first train for 2026 Spring Festival holiday, carrying nearly 700 passengers to their destinations for the year's most important festival.