In 2025, Spring Festival travel rush’s ＂big exam＂ is coming! After New Year’s Eve is included in the statutory holiday, cross-regional personnel flow will reach a new high.

21st century business herald reporter sha li reports from Beijing. On the afternoon of January 8, the State Council held a press conference to introduce the situation and work arrangement of Spring Festival travel rush in 2025.

The reporter learned from the press conference that the Spring Festival travel rush in 2025 will last for 40 days from January 14th to February 22nd. Transportation and other departments predict that during the period of Spring Festival travel rush, the cross-regional mobility of the whole society will reach 9 billion passengers, and the passenger traffic of railways and civil aviation is expected to exceed 510 million passengers and 90 million passengers respectively, both reaching record highs. Self-driving travel will remain the dominant position, with an estimated 7.2 billion person-times, accounting for about 80% of the cross-regional flow of people in the whole society, and the peak of expressway traffic volume may reach a record high in a single day.

Li Chunlin, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the press conference that this year’s Spring Festival is earlier than in previous years, and there will be a superposition of students, workers, visiting relatives and tourists around the Spring Festival, with a high concentration. Urban agglomerations such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao and Chengdu-Chongqing are still the main concentration areas of passenger flow. Considering that the transportation in Spring Festival travel rush will be upgraded to full capacity in a short time, there is great pressure on ensuring smooth flow, safety, preventing bad weather and coordinating passenger and cargo transportation.

In this regard, Li Chunlin said that the National Development and Reform Commission, in conjunction with relevant departments, studied and planned as early as possible and comprehensively adopted a number of measures to meet the travel needs of residents, including increasing transportation capacity, guiding travel, ensuring smooth flow and optimizing services.

The railway sent 12.75 million passengers every day.

The starting time of Spring Festival travel rush in 2025 is 12 days earlier than that of Spring Festival travel rush in 2024, and the train tickets for Spring Festival travel rush have been put on sale. On the morning of January 8th, some netizens reported that the 12306 mobile APP could not log in normally, and "12306 crashed" rushed to Weibo for hot search. After emergency disposal by the technical team, the APP has resumed normal operation.

The reporter learned from the press conference that the number of passengers sent by railways in Spring Festival travel rush this year is expected to exceed 510 million, with an average of 12.75 million passengers per day, an increase of 5.5% compared with that in Spring Festival travel rush in 2024.

Zhu Wenzhong, head of China State Railway Group Co.,Ltd. Passenger Transport Department, said at the press conference that the overall passenger flow of Spring Festival travel rush Railway will increase steadily in 2025; The passenger flow will still show obvious one-way characteristics, but the reverse passenger flow will further increase; In some periods and directions of peak passenger flow in Spring Festival travel rush, such as from Guangzhou-Shenzhen area to Changsha, Wuhan and Chengdu-Chongqing before the Spring Festival, there is still a contradiction between traffic volume and transportation capacity.

In this regard, Zhu Wenzhong pointed out that China State Railway Group Co.,Ltd. has made great efforts to increase the capacity in the direction of concentrated passenger flow in Spring Festival travel rush, make overall arrangements for trains in the direction of non-concentrated passenger flow, maintain the scale of ordinary passenger trains, and run public welfare "slow trains" and "rural revitalization" passenger trains. More than 14,000 passenger trains are arranged every day, which can add about 500,000 seats every day, and the passenger capacity increases by about 4% year-on-year.

Zhu Wenzhong further mentioned that before the Spring Festival, in areas with concentrated passenger flow such as Beijing, Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou and Guangzhou-Shenzhen, China State Railway Group Co.,Ltd. arranged to operate 1,724 pairs of long-distance passenger trains every day, an increase of 64 pairs year-on-year; At the peak of passenger flow, 329 pairs of long-distance high-speed trains were arranged at night, an increase of 38 pairs over the same period of last year. After the Spring Festival, 871 pairs of long-distance passenger trains were arranged daily in Chengdu-Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanchang, Hunan and other areas with concentrated passenger flow, an increase of 46 pairs year-on-year; At the peak of passenger flow, 170 pairs of long-distance high-speed trains were arranged at night, an increase of 31 pairs.

Zhu Wenzhong pointed out that according to the travel needs of passengers, China State Railway Group Co.,Ltd. has continuously improved its service measures, such as optimizing the functions of the 12306 system, scientifically formulating ticketing strategies, optimizing the pre-filling function of ticketing information, increasing the ticketing services for students and migrant workers, and ensuring the travel of key groups.

Self-driving travel accounts for about 80%

This year, the cross-regional mobility of people in Spring Festival travel rush is expected to hit a new record high, of which 80% will pass through expressways and ordinary national and provincial highways, making self-driving travel more prominent, which may form a travel peak.

In this regard, Wang Qiang, director of the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, said at the press conference that in order to ensure residents’ travel during Spring Festival travel rush, the Ministry of Public Security has started relevant work and made a series of arrangements, especially for passenger and cargo transportation, self-driving travel and other traffic safety issues. Specifically includes the following aspects.

The first is to comprehensively investigate and manage potential safety hazards. The Ministry of Public Security has deployed and launched a nationwide public security system to prevent production safety risks, and jointly with relevant departments, comprehensively investigated the traffic safety hazards of people, vehicles, roads and enterprises, prohibited unqualified vehicles and unqualified drivers from participating in Spring Festival travel rush, and promoted the hidden dangers management of bridges and tunnels, sharp bends and steep slopes, water and cliffs, highway entrances and exits and accident-prone points. At the same time, the Ministry of Public Security has also deployed targeted traffic management measures for the peak hours of road traffic, such as from off-year to New Year’s Eve in 2025, visiting relatives and visiting the garden during the Spring Festival holiday, and returning home after the Spring Festival holiday.

Second, the whole police mobilized to escort Spring Festival travel rush safely. During the period of Spring Festival travel rush, local public security traffic control departments will set up traffic police law enforcement stations at busy traffic points, and put police force and emergency disposal equipment on the road to the maximum extent. The national traffic police auxiliary police will focus on key time periods, key road sections and key vehicles, strictly investigate traffic violations that are easy to cause trouble and disrupt traffic order, and make every effort to ensure safe and smooth road traffic.

The third is to provide maximum security for safe travel services. During the period of Spring Festival travel rush, especially during the peak hours of concentrated travel, the public security traffic police will rely on various media, as well as new means and applications such as dual micro platforms and map navigation, and timely release information such as road information, traffic guidance and safety tips to guide residents to cooperate with the road guidance.

During the period of Spring Festival travel rush, many residents also chose new energy vehicles to travel by car. In this regard, Gao Bo, head of the Transportation Service Department of the Ministry of Transport, said that by the end of November 2024, the national expressway service areas (including parking areas) had built a total of 33,100 charging piles and 49,300 charging parking spaces, and the proportion of expressway service areas with charging facilities had increased from 85% at the end of 2023 to 97%. Except for a few high-altitude service areas, it has basically achieved full coverage.