Wednesday 4 February 2015

Explore China - “The World's Largest Annual People Migration”


Are you ready for “Chunyun (春运)”? The trains are!

Chunyun also referred to as the Spring Festival travel season or the Chunyun period, is a period of travel in China with extremely high traffic load around the time of the Chinese New Year.

“‪Dustmen‬” were busy wiping down the high speed ‪‎trains in Nanning city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Tuesday. The trains will take part in “the world's largest human migration” starting from Wednesday and lasting for 40 days!

In another city, Kunming of Yunnan Province, railway workers were also seen engaged in maintenance work for the upcoming "‪‎Chunyun‬" recently.

In fact throughout China, the ‪‎transportation networks are preparing for the upcoming ‪‎travel rush during the ‪Spring Festival that starts on Feb 19. Nearly three billion trips are expected during the 40-day period surrounding Chinese ‪New Year this year.

The Spring Festival travel season, known as "Chunyun", is also known as the world's largest human migration. Because of this, police have stepped up their actions to protect the public from threats and opportunists. Chinese rail police have launched a campaign targeting train ticket scalping that sometimes occurs ahead of the Spring Festival travel rush.

The 40-day-long travel peak officially begins on February 4 this year and lasts until March 16, but thousands of people have already begun their trek.

According to the Transport Ministry estimation, the number, which excludes trips via public buses and taxi, some 2.8 billion trips will be made during the period this year, up 3.4% year on year. Medium- and short-distance travel is expected to increase sharply. Some foreigners living in the country have also braved the trip.

The ministry said several new high-speed railways, which have been put into operation since last year, have facilitated the transportation. The railway system says it will add about 2,000 extra passenger trains during the peak period.

To cope with the traffic, 314 more trains and 12,000 extra flights have been added.

Traveling home is a happy journey, but sometimes it is long and tedious too. So how people deal with the long and tedious trip? Here are four must-haves for Chinese travelers.

Instant noodles:

Cheap and convenient, they keep one full and warm during the long ride home.

Fold-able stool:

Given the rush, one often has to end up standing for long periods, either at platforms or in trains. At such times, a foldable stool is worth its weight in gold!

Playing cards:

These are definitely lifesavers on long journeys. They help you kill time and perhaps make friends.

Smartphone:

Now, this isn’t a must-have really. But it can make the travel so much more fun. Often young Chinese have tended to document the good and the bad during their journeys during the Spring Festival, becoming online sensations.




















Source - cctv news

No comments:

Post a Comment