The Ministry of Railways is preparing to transport a record number of people during next year's spring festival to celebrate the lunar New Year.
About 130 million people are expected to travel by train for the festival, which is a traditional time for family reunions.
The number is about 3 million more than during the same period last year, said ministry sources.
The lunar New Year falls on February 12 next year.
The transport ministry have officially defined the 15 days before and 25 days after the lunar New Year as a travelling peak in 2002.
Liu Zhijun, vice-minister of railways, said his ministry would help transport students back home at an early date so the ministry could focus on carrying other passengers during the week before the festival.
Students are expected to return home at the start of the holidays in late January. This would cause less congestion during the most crowded week before the lunar New Year.
The ministry plans to give Beijing,
GuangZhou and
Shanghai special priority during the peak period, given the huge numbers of colleges and migrant workers in the three cities.
Liu said his ministry would put on additional passenger trains to some regions to meet demand.
But the ministry refused to say whether or not train ticket prices would increase by between 30 and 40 per cent during the peak period, as they did last spring.
Road-transport authorities have been ordered to hold public hearings over any proposed price changes but the rail sector may be immune from such obligations. The ministry of railways said higher ticket prices could compensate for increasing operating costs during the peak period and also lessen rail congestion by encouraging some people to travel by road.
A
Beijing court ruled last month that the increase in train ticket prices for this year's spring festival was in accordance with China's Price Law and related industry regulations.
In another development, the Ministry of Communications announced Tuesday in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, that China's total road mileage would reach 1.43 million kilometres by the end of this year.
Huang Zhendong, the minister of communications, told a working conference that his ministry had invested 260 billion yuan (US$31 billion) on road construction so far this year. The money was used to pave 32,000 kilometres of new road across the country this year.
He said that, between January and November this year, road investment in western China increased by 23 per cent compared with the same period last year. Eight trans-provincial roads in west China were at an advanced stage of construction, he added.
In the first 11 months of this year, 14.34 billion road journeys were made in China. In other words, each of China's 1.3 billion people made 11 journeys on average.
The working conference continues until Friday and senior officials from provincial-level road network bureaux are expected to discuss issues such as traffic safety and the impact of the World Trade Organization on China's road network.(China Daily)(12./19/2001)
