China logs over 3 billion trips during first two weeks of Spring Festival travel rush

China

China logs over 3 billion trips during first two weeks of Spring Festival travel rush

2025-01-27 10:51 Last Updated At：18:57

An estimate of over 3 billion cross-regional trips had bee recorded nationwide as China's Spring Festival travel rush entered its 14th day on Sunday.

The 40-day travel period, which began on Jan 14, is expected to witness a record nine billion passenger trips across the country as passenger needs evolve.

Influenced by factors such as new urbanization initiatives and county-level tourism, short- to medium-distance trips for family visits and travel have increased.

Since the start of the Spring Festival travel season, the travel volume in the four major urban clusters, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone, has accounted for over 50 percent of the total national travel volume.

During this year's Spring Festival travel period, the average travel distance for intercity passengers is approximately 150 kilometers. Combined rail-road transport remains the most common mode of connection. The top three most popular transit cities are Chengdu, Chongqing, and Guangzhou.

"Passenger flows are shifting from major cities to small and medium-sized cities, exhibiting a clear tidal pattern. Large cities like Hangzhou, Wuhan, and Xi'an have seen varying degrees of growth in travel volume and distance compared to the same period last year. This indicates an expansion in travel range, a stronger willingness to travel among the public, and hints at the thriving development of the Spring Festival tourism and consumption market," said Liu Dongmei, deputy director of the Big Data Industry Research and Development Center at the Research Institute of Highway of the Ministry of Transport.

China's power use up 6 pct in April

China's electricity consumption, a key barometer of economic activity, rose six percent year on year in April, official data showed Tuesday.

Power use totaled 820.5 billion kilowatt-hours last month, according to the National Energy Administration.

A breakdown of the data showed that power consumed by the primary industry rose 2 percent year on year to 11.2 billion kilowatt-hours, while power consumed by the secondary industry increased 5.3 percent to 558.4 billion kilowatt-hours.

Within the secondary industry, industrial power use rose 5.5 percent year on year to 553.8 billion kilowatt-hours, while electricity consumption by high-tech equipment manufacturing climbed 10.1 percent to 105 billion kilowatt-hours.

Power used by the tertiary industry reached 151.7 billion kilowatt-hours in April, up 8.9 percent year on year. The charging and battery swapping service sector and internet data services reported rapid growth in electricity consumption, rising 61.9 percent and 42.8 percent, respectively.

Electricity consumption by residents rose 6 percent from a year earlier to 99.2 billion kilowatt-hours.

In the first four months of the year, China's total power use exceeded 3.33 trillion kilowatt-hours, up 5.4 percent year on year, the data showed.