CRI听力:China Spring Festival Travel Rush Begins

The Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, falls on Feb. 10th this year.

Hundreds of millions of people will embark on a journey for family reunion, putting huge pressure on the country's transportation networks.

Among them, the railways will handle 225 million passengers, up by 4.6 percent year on year.

Wei Ruiming, an official from China's Ministry of Railways, says the railway transportation is still stressed despite intensified efforts.

"The railways' capacity increases by 220,000 passengers everyday than last year. However, the carrying capacity is relatively limited considering the travel demand during the Spring Festival holiday. Therefore it's hard to meet the travel demand despite our efforts."

To cope with the increasing number of passengers, the railway authorities will add 450 more pairs of temporary trains everyday to meet the travel demand.

That represents an increase of 166 pairs of trains everyday on average than last year.

Meanwhile, the number of passengers traveling home by road is expected to reach over 3 billion.

Feng Zhenglin, Vice Minister of Transport, says the road system is fully prepared.

"We will increase our passenger capacity at short-distance travels, especially the short-distance travels in rural areas. We must ensure that the migrant workers can travel to home."

This year, an increasing number of people will travel by air for their family reunions and more likely for tourism purposes.

Airlines in China have arranged 25,000 more flights for the passengers. The flights are mainly added in tourist cities and cities with a great number of migrant workers.

The Chinese New Year is one of the most important traditional Chinese festivals with a one week public holiday.

Each year, the Chinese people travel from the country's developed regions to their underdeveloped hometowns for family reunions before the Chinese New Year.

And after the holiday period, family members travel to return to their working places - mostly the big cities again.

For CRI, I'm Yin Xiuqi.