Passenger Flow Picks Up Steadily in China

Passenger Flow Picks Up Steadily in China

Passenger travel within China has been picking up at a rapid pace since the World Health Organization lifted travel warnings to parts of the country's northern regions a week ago. In Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the number of railway passengers has reached a daily level of about 20,000, with suspended train routes resuming operation. Taiyuan railway station in Shanxi Province has seen a 10 percent increase in passenger flow in recent days, reaching 10,000 travelers a day. Also in Shanxi, the number of travelers taking to the air has quadrupled since the lowest point of the SARS outbreak. Highway and railway transportation in Hebei Province is also picking up, with the volume of railway passengers on main routes increasing by 6 percent each day. Passenger flow is expected to be back to normal by the end of the month. Zhengzhou railway station, one of the main railway hubs in the country, has been witnessing an increase of more than 1,000 travelers per day since early June. Now about 30,000 people pass through the station daily. Air, railway and highway transportation in the western and southern regions is also steadily approaching pre-SARS levels. And with students traveling home for summer vacations and migrant workers returning to China's big cities to work, transport authorities are predicting a travel peak in July.