11.1 Mln Rail Trips Made in Yangtze River Delta during Holiday

Yangtze River Delta’s railway system handled around 11.1 million passenger trips during the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, up 13,3 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the Shanghai branch of China Railway.

The company said it handled 9.3 million short-haul trips between April 4 and 7, up 14.4 percent. Many passengers traveled to cities along high-speed railways linking Beijing and Shanghai, Shanghai and Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, Nanjing and Hangzhou, Hefei and Fuzhou, Ningbo and Wenzhou, Ningbo and Anqing, and Hangzhou and Huangshan.

The Tomb Sweeping Day, also known as Qingming Festival, fell on April 5 this year. It is a tradition that Chinese people pay tribute to deceased family members, friends and national heroes on that day.

The regional railway system handled more than 3.2 million passenger trips on the Tomb Sweeping Day, a 17.9 percent year-on-year increase. It added additional runs to meet the surge.

605 train services were added during the four-day period, up 51.6 percent year-on-year. The rail authority put 1,126 bullet trains into service, a 40.8 percent surge from the same period last year.

The Yangtze River Delta region consists of Shanghai and Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces.