A projected 1 million people will enter or exit the the city by rail and road during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which coincides with the start of the annual summer travel rush this year, a figure up roughly 14 percent from last year, local authorities said Sunday.
Local train stations will take on most of the burden during the break from June 22 to 24, moving some 700,000 people, up 13.9 percent from the 614,500 passengers last year, Hu Jian, press officer for Shanghai Railway Bureau, told the Global Times.
The bureau, which operates trains for Shanghai and nearby Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, will add 62 pairs of trains to cope with the increased passenger load during the holiday. Extra carriages will also be on stand-by, said Hu.
"Dragon Boat Festival falls later than usual on the Western calendar this year, while the summer travel rush begins earlier," said Hu. "So, we'll probably see more students going home or traveling."
The summer travel rush gets underway on June 20, and ends 82 days later on September 9, the longest summer travel rush window in the city ever. As such, students can purchase tickets five days earlier this year, up to 15 days in advance.
On the roads, meanwhile, the city's long distance buses are set to transport some 120,000 people for Dragon Boat Festival, and another 3.88 million riders by the end of the summer travel rush period.
Zhang Yongbin, a press officer for Shanghai's Central Long Distance Bus Station, said Sunday that staff will be extra strict about checking tickets this year, to ensure that students do not sneak on without tickets, and to make sure that none of the buses are overloaded.
