Millions on their way back to Shanghai

As the Spring Festival holiday draws near to the end, a surge of people returning to Shanghai is predicted for Saturday and Sunday.

From Saturday until February 17, a daily average of over 400,000 passengers will be arriving at the city’s three railway terminals – Shanghai Railway Station, Shanghai South Railway Station and Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, according to the railway authority.

For Saturday, the number of passengers arriving is predicted to be 480,000, and the number of those departing will be around 239,000.

Forty-four temporary trains will take passengers to Anhui, Jiangxi, Sichuan and central Chinese provinces today, and in the Yangtze River Delta region, more trains will take passengers from cities such as Hefei, Fuyang, Xuzhou and Ningbo to large cities like Shanghai and Nanjing.

From January 21 to yesterday, Shanghai’s three railway terminals have seen off 7.53 million passengers, and it was estimated that from February 5 to March 1, about 9.67 million passengers will arrive in Shanghai.

As some railway passengers who arrive in Shanghai after midnight spend the night at railway stations, the city’s four metro lines, 1, 2, 3 and 4, which stop by the three railway stations, will add more trains.

The same surge of passengers is also predicted for the city’s two airports.

At Hongqiao International Airport, the surge already appeared yesterday and will last till tomorrow with expected daily traffic of 127,000 passengers.

At Pudong International Airport, the peak of passengers returning to Shanghai is predicted for tomorrow to February 14, with daily traffic of 225,000 passengers.

Within the city, bus companies will add more buses to accommodate the increase in passengers.

The traffic police said the traffic volume on the city’s expressways from out of town already started to increase yesterday and they expect numbers to climax tomorrow.

According to the city’s weather authorities, it will be cloudy with short-time drizzle or drizzly with snow in the eastern part of the city this weekend. The highest temperature for Saturday will be 5 degrees Celsius, and the lowest for Sunday will be 3.