Totally COVID free, this Chinese New Year is expecting more travellers than ever before, by a long margin. Faced with the pressure of such large-scale passenger flow, Nanjing’s transportation network has been attempting preparations to ensure safe and smooth journeys.
Today, 26 January, marks the official start to the 2024 Spring Festival travel mode. This year, some 11.03 million people are expected to travel in and out of Nanjing by road, rail and air over the 40-day holiday period, an increase of 42 percent year-on-year on 2023, for an average of 275,750 journeys per day.
Main destinations within Jiangsu are predicted to be Huai’an, Yancheng, Yangzhou and Taizhou, while in neighbouring Anhui, many travellers will be headed to and from Ma’anshan, Chuzhou and Xuancheng. Large numbers shall also be headed back home to Henan and Shandong Provinces.
In their bid to better serve travellers, passengers with special needs (seniors, the weak or sick, pregnant women and those with reduced mobility) will find services in place at both Nanjing Railway Station and Nanjing South Railway Station to help them transfer more easily between train and metro and vice versa.
On the roads, the two bus stations located at Nanjing’s main railway hubs are offering 24-hour ticket sales, boiling water, heated waiting areas and even a 24-hour food supply. For the drivers of electric cars, many additional high-speed charging spaces have been opened up at highway service stations, as Nanjing Daily reports.
In the air, authorities at Nanjing Lukou International Airport have rolled out a complimentary winter-clothes storage facility. Passengers departing for warmer climes can drop off down jackets and then pick them up at a designated location when they return.
And those who, on the other hand, fancy it even colder and are embracing the trend for ice-and-snow tourism will be happy to know Lukou is increasing the number of flights to places up north, such as Harbin, Yanji, Zhanjiang and Linfen.
In terms of international routes, increasingly frequent flights are being laid on between from Nanjing and Tokyo, Nagoya and Singapore.
Of those 11.03 million people making their journeys in and out of Nanjing for Chinese New Year 2024, some 610,000 are projected to do so by road, 1.7 million by civil aviation and a whopping 8.72 million by train.
