Mainland transport, energy and security authorities have been put on high alert to cope with the world's largest annual migration of people during the Lunar New Year, with hundreds of millions expected to travel to visit their families.
Senior government officials said yesterday they faced mounting challenges in dealing with the record number of travellers during the 40-day peak travel period, which officially started yesterday.
The problems are compounded by the forecast for poor weather and the poor safety record of railways and road systems.
This year's peak period is expected to see the number of passenger trips on trains, planes, buses and boats reach 3.2 billion, or about 80 million trips a day, according to Liu Tienan , a deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission. This is a rise of 9.1 per cent on last year.
'The huge volume of travellers has exceeded the capacity of our transport system,' said Liu, who is also head of the National Energy Administration. 'The situation is by no means optimistic. The difficulties are unprecedented and the task looks set to be arduous.'
The peak travel period usually sees a sharp rise in all sorts of deadly traffic accidents, analysts note.
Liu said the much shorter period this year between January 1 and the Lunar New Year, which falls in a fortnight, has left most passengers limited time to trek home and exerted enormous pressure on the authorities to cope.