中国春运揭开序幕

The annual 40-day travel rush lasts from January 8th to February 16th this year, as millions of travelers will board public transport in order to journey across the country to enjoy Spring Festival celebrations with their families.

And this year is also the first time railway passengers are required to board trains with their identity certificates. In Beijing West Railway Station, more than 100 checkpoints have been set up, and at Beijing Railway Station over 30 checkpoints are in operation.

Lao Zhang is a migrant worker from Sichuan province who has been working in Beijing for several years. With train ticket in hand, He went to the Beijing West Railway Station two hours prior to the departure time of his train; believing that he would have to spend a long time going through the ticket checking procedure.

"We got here earlier, because we thought it would be very crowded here."

However, to his surprise, it only took Lao about ten minutes to pass through the checkpoint, thanks to the fact that the Beijing West Railway Station has set up 106 checkpoints around the station.

Song Jianguo, spokesman for the Beijing West Railway Station says at the beginning of Chunyun the station is expected to receive up to 160,000 passengers a day. That number is likely to increase to 240,000 during the peak season.

"Faced with a huge increase in the flow of passengers, we set up temporary waiting halls in our station, which can accommodate up to 10,000 passengers. We've also opened 170 more ticketing windows in order to ensure that passengers' journeys run as smoothly as possible."

At Shanghai Railway Station, 3.5 million passengers are expected to depart before Spring Festival. Apart from additional number of staff on duty, efficiency has been maintained with the help of volunteer university students who are answering passenger queries.

Some passengers have said that they are relieved to see that the waiting hall is not as chaotic as they had expected. But station staff say the peak in traveler numbers is yet to come.

In Guangzhou, the railway authorities have set up check in areas outside the station. Some passengers are required to arrive four hours prior to their train's departure time at the Pazhou International Exhibition Center, which is being used as the station's waiting hall.

After passengers have had their tickets and ID checked at the exhibition center, they can take the subway free of charge to the Guangzhou Railway Station, and board their train directly, without having to go through the ticket checkpoints at the railway station. This measure has relieved the pressure at the railway station.

Transport departments have estimated that the number of passenger trips on trains, planes, boats and buses will reach 3.2 billion during the 40-day travel period, up 9.1 percent from last year.

To cope with the rush, railway authorities, bus companies and airlines are increasing their capacity.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.