国内英语新闻:More passengers hit the road as holiday winds down

BEIJING, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Highways and railroads across China have seen increasing passenger flow while millions of Chinese return to work as the week-long Spring Festival holiday comes to an end, transportation authorities said Friday.

A total of 40.91 million road trips were made on Chinese highways on Thursday, up 9.8 percent from the same period last year, according to data from the Ministry of Transport.

He Jianzhong, a spokesman with the ministry, said that transport authorities in China had mobilized 750,000 passenger vehicles on Thursday to help complete the journeys.

On the same day, 5.09 million passenger trips were made on the country's railways, up from 4.5 million on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Railways.

The country's railway authority said that it put 517 more trains into service on Thursday to cope with Lunar New Year travel demand, and 672 additional trains are scheduled to be put into operation on Friday, the day that the ministry expects the post-festival travel peak to start.

The travel peak will also bring heavy traffic to some sections of the country's major highways and road stations temporarily, said He.

The snow and rainfall in the country's southern regions is not likely to have a serious impact on road travel in the coming days, he said.

The Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, which fell on Jan. 23 this year, is traditionally a time for family reunions in the nation.