Passenger trips surge on Day 2 of Qingming holiday as sightseeing, tomb-sweeping gain traction

China's transport authorities have stepped up services to ensure safe and smooth trips as travel flows are rising on Sunday, the second day of the three-day Qingming Festival holiday, engaging mainly in sightseeing and tomb-sweeping.

The Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, falls on April 5 this year. It is a traditional Chinese festival for people to pay tribute to the dead and worship their ancestors. The holiday also provides a short break for people to engage in spring outings.

China's railway system is projected to transport 14.7 million passengers on Sunday, with 768 additional trains scheduled to handle the increased flow.

Many stations across the country have set up designated amusing areas for children, added free charging facilities, and increased the frequency of bus and taxi connections to facilitate passengers.

The highway network is expected to see about 54.8 million vehicles hit the road on the second day of the holiday, including around 14 million new energy vehicles (NEVs).

Short-distance trips dominate the trend, with heavy congestions seen near parks, suburban scenic spots, and cemeteries.

The Yangtze River Delta in east China, the Chengdu-Chongqing region in the southwest, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the south and other key regions have deployed additional staff at service areas to ease traffic and increased mobile charging stations.

Waterway travel is also expected to peak on Sunday, with passenger trips expected to exceed 1.36 million, up 4.3 percent year on year. Visitors for urban sightseeing cruises, island tours and other water-based leisure activities are likely to increase noticeably.

Passenger trips surge on Day 2 of Qingming holiday as sightseeing, tomb-sweeping gain traction

Passenger trips surge on Day 2 of Qingming holiday as sightseeing, tomb-sweeping gain traction

Passenger trips surge on Day 2 of Qingming holiday as sightseeing, tomb-sweeping gain traction

More than 1,000 coal mines in China have adopted intelligent systems, as their application expands from pilot projects to large-scale deployment, the China National Coal Association said recently.

Statistics show that by the end of 2025, a total of 1,066 coal mines nationwide have introduced smart systems, with such technologies now supporting more than 65 percent of the country's coal production capacity. The number of autonomous mining trucks in operation surpassed 4,000 units, roughly doubling on an annual basis.

The rapid adoption of smart mining is driven by robust domestic capabilities in intelligent equipment and technology. In Beijing, a newly deployed underground Internet of Things (IoT) precision positioning and management system links workers, positioning cards and operating zones, while also enabling health monitoring. Its core technologies and components are fully domestically developed and have been applied in coal mines and coal preparation plants. "This underground positioning system we've developed has a positioning deviation of less than 20 centimeters when a person or device is stationary. Even when a person or device is moving at high speeds, the margin of error remains minimal. A single device can cover a radius of 800 meters," said Wu Fengdong, general manager of China Coal Beijing Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Coal Group Corporation.

Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–2025), cumulative investment in smart mining has exceeded 107.1 billion yuan (about 15.6 billion U.S. dollars), with intelligent technologies now widely applied, accelerating the shift from traditional mining to modern, technology-driven extraction.

Over 60 pct of China's coal production capacity uses smart technology by end of 2025