China braces for world's biggest travel rush around Spring Festival

3 billion trips expected over the course of 40 days for upcoming family holiday

China's Spring Festival travel rush－the world's biggest annual human migration－will soon kick off and is set to be bigger than ever, with about 3 billion trips expected to be made, according to the country's top economic planner.

Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, will fall on Jan 25, the earliest in the last eight years.

The 40-day travel rush, known as chunyun, will begin on Jan 10 and last until Feb 18.

Lian Weiliang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a news conference on Wednesday that the number of road trips during the travel rush is projected to reach 2.43 billion, down 1.2 percent from last year, while boat trips are likely to top 45 million, surging 9.6 percent.

"About 790,000 buses and 19,000 boats will be put into operation to meet passengers' rising travel demand," he said, adding that the removal of expressway toll booths at provincial borders and the popularization of electronic toll collection devices will relieve traffic congestion on expressways during the travel rush.

The Ministry of Transport said China had more than 181 million electronic toll collection users as of Dec 4, accounting for 80 percent of registered automobiles.

Liu Xiaoming, vice-minister of transport, said China is expected to have 200 million private cars by the end of this year, and the country's expressways will operate toll-free during the weeklong Spring Festival holiday. They will, as a result, face mounting traffic pressure.

The promotion of automatic payment services nationwide will improve the efficiency of road transport during the travel rush by greatly reducing travel time and logistics costs for drivers, he added.

The Ministry of Public Security will strengthen checks for unsafe vehicles and unqualified drivers to ensure road safety, focusing on overloading, fatigue, drunken driving and drivers operating vehicles for which they are not licensed.

High-speed trains and airplanes have accounted for an increasing proportion of chunyun travel in recent years, with train trips predicted to hit 440 million during next year's travel rush, up 8 percent year-on-year. About 79 million plane trips will be made, a rise of 8.4 percent over this year, according to the commission.

Lian said the percentage of long-distance trips during the travel rush has gradually decreased in recent years thanks to integrated urban-rural development.

"During last year's travel rush, the average travel distance was only 394.4 kilometers, and nearly 80 percent of the homecoming passengers traveled less than 500 km," he said.

Spring Festival is China's most important family holiday, with hundreds of millions of people heading to their hometowns to meet up with relatives and old friends, putting huge stress on the transport system.