Railways all set for May Day holiday travel boom
Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station is packed.
Travelling is exhausting.
A record number of railway passengers are set to travel out of both Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region on Saturday, the first day of the five-day May Day holiday, China Railway Shanghai Group said.
A total of 642,000 railway passengers are forecast at seven railway stations in Shanghai, surpassing the precious record of 595,946 on October 1, 2019.
Some 370,000 passengers are expected at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, followed by Shanghai Railway Station and Shanghai South Railway Station.
Tickets for most trains departing from Shanghai on the day have been sold out, the group said.
Almost all tickets on the Shanghai-Nanjing route before 7pm have been sold out, and the same for Shanghai-Hangzhou before 4pm.
There are only a few tickets left for directions to Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangdong provinces and China's northeast.
An additional 60 trains are operating on the day to cope with the surging demand. They will head for Xuzhou, Jiangxi, and Anhui, among others.
Shanghai Railway Station, Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station and Shanghai South Railway Station have increased the number of opening ticketing windows and security check points to speed up passenger flow.
The use of face masks is widespread.
Passengers queue in good order.
Hangzhou East Station is busy.
Their waiting rooms are open overnight to create a comfortable environment for passengers who have bought midnight tickets.
Passengers should wear masks and have their temperatures checked.
A total of 3.6 million railway trips are expected in the Yangtze River Delta region on Saturday, also a daily record high.
On Friday, 3.109 million railway trips were recorded in the region, a surge of 125 percent from the same day last year.
An additional 323 trains are operating on Saturday in the region, among which 248 are short-distance.
Major directions of these extra trains include from Shanghai to Nanchang, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Luoyang, Changsha and Wuhan for long distance. Short distance trains mainly cover popular tourist destinations like Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Lishui, Yancheng and Huangshan.
Cleaning and disinfection of toilets and chairs at railway stations and trains has been stepped up.
The Yangtze River Delta region is predicted to have more than 22 million railway trips during the May Day holiday travel peak.
The May Day holiday railway travel peak runs from April 29 to May 6.
The long holiday and well-under-control pandemic will trigger a boom in cross-province long trips during the travel peak, the Railway Group said.
