Yangtze River Delta railways handle 43.10 mln trips during chunyun

A train runs on the Hefei-Anqing section of the Beijing-Hong Kong High-speed Railway. (Photo by Lv Jin)

Railways in the Yangtze River Delta region handled 43.10 million passenger trips during the 40-day chunyun period, also known as the annual Spring Festival travel rush, accounting for 20.4 percent of the national total, China Railway Shanghai Group said on Tuesday.

Traffic flow in the region was 57.40 percent of that before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the group.

Of the 43.10 million trips, 10.74 million were made before the Spring Festival, representing a daily average of 716,000, and 32.36 million were made after the festival, or a daily average of 1.29 million.

84 percent of the total were high-speed railway trips, the group said.

Rail traffic started growing after the festival as the pandemic waned. From March 1 to 8, the number of daily trips reached 1.72 million on average.

Up to 1,997 additional trains were operated during chunyun which began on January 28 and ended on March 8.

A staff member of a railway service company sprays disinfectant at Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai. (Photo by Zhao Jin'ai)