又是一年春运时 | An inside look at China's Spring Festival travel rush

盼望着，盼望着

春节的脚步近了

#2019年春运#也已然拉开大幕

“地球上最大规模的人口迁徙”再一次如约而至

世界再大，也要回家

（上图来源：央广军事）

一路上，他们在默默守护和保障

一路上，也有无限的温暖和心意

今天（23日）是春运第三天，全国铁路客流持续增长，学生流、探亲流、务工返乡流、旅游流相互叠加。据央视新闻数据显示，全国铁路昨天（22日）发送旅客约930万人次，增开旅客列车518列。其中，北京局、武汉局和广铁集团公司增开列车207列。主要增开方向为北京、武汉、广州前往湖南、东北、川渝、长三角等方向。

民航方面，首都机场昨天起降飞机1700多架次，进出港旅客约为27.19万人次。预计今天，出港旅客约为14.76万人次。其中，国内旅客通过安检的高峰时段为早上5点30分至早7点。

↑戳视频看动画 CGTN记者为你“数据说春运”

As the traditional Chinese New Year falls on February 5, the world's most populated country is ready to embrace the 2019 Spring Festival travel rush, known as the Chunyun in Chinese, as people nationwide return their hometowns to enjoy the family reunion.

Beginning on January 21, the 40-day travel rush, famous as the planet's largest human migration, will last until March 1 and see nearly three billion trips, which is more than four times of European population.

The figure is up 0.6 percent year on year, according to Lian Weiliang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Among the three billion trips, the road trips take up a lion share, totaling 2.46 billion. However, this travel mode sees a decrease of 0.8 percent in comparison with the same period in 2018.

Meanwhile, it is easy to find that both the railway trips and air trips see a clear growth. For example, the number of railway and airplane trips are projected to hit 413 million and 73 million, respectively up 8.3 percent and 12 percent year-on-year.

There are no noticeable changes in boat trips, which show a flat year-on-year growth with 43 million trips.

The two favored trips not only reflect the advances in travel infrastructure in China in recent years but also show the government's efforts in enhancing transportation capacity.

New strategies to make the travel rush more convenient

近年来，我国铁路网络在不断地发展与完善，与此同时，铁路部门也在便民措施上进行了不小的升级。今年春运期间，旅客们在购票、进站、乘车等多个环节，都将体验到更加温暖和智慧化的服务。例如在不少大城市的火车站里，进站也有了更为快速便捷的方式，即我们俗称的“刷脸进站”系统，可以帮旅客节省不少排队等候的时间。

The ongoing travel rush boasts the debut of the first batch of bullet trains running at a speed of 160 kilometers per hour.

Facial recognition technology, which aims to speed up ticket checks as passengers' faces can be used as tickets, sees its use ranging from the railway stations and airports in major first-tier cities including Beijing and Shanghai to those in the third or fourth-tier cities including Luoyang in central China's Henan Province.

There is a new kind of "ticketless travel" at the stations where facial recognition hasn't been applied. Instead of buying tickets online and collecting them at the stations, travelers can pass ticket checks by scanning QR codes using their phones and pay afterwards.

China's official website for train ticket booking, 12306.com, has introduced a new function to boost buyers' chance of obtaining a ticket because it's common to see all the available tickets sell out in seconds.

The new function is said to be able to automatically allocate canceled train tickets to other buyers who have paid in advance when tickets have sold out. This definitely will save passengers the trouble of refreshing the website repeatedly to wait for canceled tickets, let alone the challenges posed by ticket-snatching plug-ins.

Many passengers show their support for the new function. "There is finally a good solution," said an internet user named Donglunanxuan, whose comment got 9368 likes.

Growing trend on 

reverse Spring Festival travel rush

与以往不同，今年的“反向春运”趋势尤为明显，北京、上海、广州等城市成为热门目的地。前往这些目的地，机票价格不仅优惠，且票源充足。以除夕当天的某订票网站为例，广州飞郑州最低票价1065元，而郑州飞广州只需499元。今年你在哪儿过年？

In recent years, there is a growing popular phenomenon called reverse Spring Festival travel rush, meaning that more and more young dream seekers in urban areas invite their parents to travel from their hometowns to spend Spring Festival with them in the big cities.

It's reported that people involving in this kind of travel rush will grow nine percent year on year on average.

The top ten destinations for the reverse travel rush are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Ningbo and Xiamen, according to Ctrip, China's largest online travel agency.

Data from the agency shows that the number of ticket bookings of the flights bound for the ten destinations sees an increase of more than 40 percent year-on-year within the week before the Spring Festival eve.

Experts say this has much to do with the rare-to-buy tickets or the pricey flight tickets because the flights on the route of reverse travel rush often have plenty tickets and most of them enjoy a relatively lower price with varied discounts.

Besides a big save on travel expense, the young urban migrants can spend more time with their parents and let their parents know the cities they work and live because the Spring Festival holiday lasts for seven days.

The data also listed the top ten original cities for the reverse Spring Festival travel rush, namely Chengdu, Chongqing, Harbin, Xi'an, Changchun, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Guiyang, Hefei and Wuhan.

It's easy to find that the provinces where these top original cities belong to are the major exporter of labor service.

With the trend, many say that major cities including Beijing and Shanghai will be no longer "empty" which they used to face, as more and more young workers returning their hometowns.

Travel rush to the world

随着旅行的常态化，全家人一起出去旅行过年也已成为不少人的过年新方式。从飞猪数据就可以看出，43%的人会选择出境或者在国内旅行过年，即使是在家过年，大家也会来个周边游，全家人一起放松放松身心。

As the tourism industry booms, 43 percent of Chinese have chosen to travel with families in China or abroad to spend the week-long Spring Festival holiday, according to fliggy.com, a Chinese travel ticket booking platform.

The country's major airports will usher in a peak of passengers' flow, especially on February 1 when most of the passengers choose to start their holiday. Many of them said that they could take a two-day break for a nine-day holiday.

The statistics from fliggy.com show that people starting from airports in Kunming, Haikou and Chengdu will prefer to travel around China, while people departing from Shanghai will have a preference traveling worldwide.

Most people spending the Spring Festival abroad will choose destinations within three-hour flight journeys. Meanwhile, the number of people going to the UK and Russia for the Spring Festival holiday has grown 93 percent and 80 percent from 2018.

哪怕万水千山，也要回家过年！

一起留言分享你的春运回家路 

Related story: