CRI听力:Traffic Pressure Still High during Travel Rush

China's transportation system is expected to be under pressure during the 40-day Spring Festival travel period, which is now underway.

Railway authorities will arrange nearly a thousand more passenger trains to handle the nearly 300 million trips expected to be taken by train.

But Li Jianfeng with China Railway Corporation says that extra trains may still not be enough to meet demand.

"The demand could be as high as seventy million one-way trips during the rush days. But our railway capacity is around seven million. The gap between demand and supply is still prominent."

Chinese authorities have adopted a number of contingency measures, including putting in place extra flights and long-distance buses to cope with the mounting travel demands.

A total of 2.8 billion trips are estimated to be made during the whole period of the nationwide travel rush.

The Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, is two weeks away.