Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

TRAIN K4286, carrying 1,500 passengers to Pingchang County, Sichuan Province, left Shenzhen West Station at 0:53 a.m. Friday, marking the start of the Spring Festival 2020 transport season’s travel rush.

Passing through Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei and Sichuan provinces, it takes K4286 about 31 hours to reach the county in Bazhong City.

Also in the wee hours of Friday morning, three other temporary routes — K4526 to Chongqing, K4134 to Ankang in Shaanxi Province and K4732 to Chengdu — also left Shenzhen Station and Shenzhen East Station to transport passengers home for family reunions and the most important holiday in China. The two stations will add 25 more pairs of temporary routes during the 15-day pre-festival period.

During the 40 days of the Spring Festival travel rush period, also known as “Chunyun” in Chinese and the largest holiday migration on Earth, Shenzhen Station and Shenzhen East Station will handle 2.96 million passengers (or 74,100 passengers per day on average).

Shenzhen North Railway Station and its auxiliary stations will operate an average of 450 pairs of trains during the peak travel rush period and estimates it will handle 11.34 million trips, an increase of 6.7 percent over the previous year. The railway station estimated that the peak will arrive the week before the start of the Spring Festival. During this pre-festival period, Shenzhen North Railway Station will handle 3.2 million passengers. On Friday, the first day, Shenzhen North Railway Station sent 282,000 passengers home.

The first day also saw the application of 5G service on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed rail, the first time for China’s high-speed rail network.

In air service, China Southern Airlines estimates it will handle 13.8 million passengers over the holidays.

In Shenzhen, it will put most flights on routes to cities in Southwest China, Central China and Northeast China.

Shenzhen Airlines will add 2,000 flights during the Spring Festival travel rush, 2.3 times more than the same period last year to handle 2.3 million passengers, the company said Thursday, the eve of the start of the transport season.

In additional to the traditional routes from Shenzhen and Guangzhou to Northeast China, Southwest China and Northwest China, Shenzhen Airlines added flights from Huizhou and Zhuhai to Southwest China. It will also add wide-body planes from Shenzhen to Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries.

The airline also introduced “Easy Go” package tickets that cover 240 routes in 60 mainland cities including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang, Chengdu, Chongqing and Nanjing. Some package round-trip tickets are priced as low as 360 yuan (US$52). Passengers on flights departing between Jan. 2 and Jan. 24 and return between Jan. 25 and Feb. 16 can enjoy the package ticket offers.

Passengers who arrive at Shenzhen airport by Shenzhen Metro or Shenzhen-Guangzhou Intercity Railway trains are not required to do the X-ray and safety gate checks before entering the terminals (explosives check is still required).

At a ceremony in Longgang Friday, migrant workers left for family reunions on free buses organized by the district, marking the fifth year that the district has given free tickets to workers. The bus routes covered 20 cities in seven provinces.

The Shenzhen transport commission estimates the city’s rail, air and bus services will handle 17.63 million trips.

To ensure road safety during the Spring Festival travel season, Shenzhen police will tighten inspections and offer rewards to whistleblowers for reporting violations that pose threat to public safety. For reporting overloading, whistleblowers can receive a reward of up to 3,000 yuan. The public can call 110 or 0755-8333-3333 or use the WeChat Mini Program “随手e拍举报” (pinyin: “suishouepaijubao”) to report suspected violations.