Spring Festival exodus on the way

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Source: CCTV.com | 01-24-2008 09:05

Public services are under pressure from bad weather, and also from a record number of travellers. The railways are jammed every day, but it's not stopping people from booking tickets home.

Passengers queue up for boarding at Yantai Railway Station  in Yantai, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province,  Jan. 23, 2008. The 40-day Spring Festival travel peak across  the country started on Jan. 23. Passengers in Yantai went on  journey home for the Spring Festival celebration in heavy  snow.(Xinhua Photo)

Wednesday marks the sixth day of China's Spring Festival peak travel season. This is Beijing West Railway Station, where people are flooding in from all directions. They have a lot to organize for their trips home, but first they must get a ticket.

46-year-old Li Yunting has been a migrant worker in Beijing for more than ten years. He used to worry about not being able to get a ticket home. But that won't happen this time around.

Migrant worker Li Yunting said, "I go back home each year before the Spring Festival. Buying a ticket was a real headache. But it's not a problem this year because we have ticket offices especially for us."

Railway passengers have numbered about 4 million each day during the past week, up 400,000 from last year. The railways are expected to carry 179 million passengers in all this year, an 8 percent increase from 2007. But a string of measures are in place to ensure everything runs smoothly.