With the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year just two days away, transport authorities have mobilized all available resources to get passengers home safely and in time for the traditional family celebration.

Sources with the Ministry of Railways said fully loaded trains would carry 3.2 million to 3.4 million passengers a day between Sunday and Thursday.

The Spring Travel Season concludes on February 25, with peak travel periods falling immediately before and after Spring Festival.

Since January 17, the first day of China's peak travel season this year, a total of 38.4 million train journeys have been made, an average of 3.2 million per day, up 10.2 per cent on last year.

The railway ministry activated an urgent transport plan on Monday to add 50 temporary passenger trains and halted the movement of some freight trains to free up tracks.

Special inspection teams headed by minister level officials from the ministry have been conducting shuttle inspections across the country to supervise the service and ticket sales.

Officials with the ministry said the railway would do their best to provide as many seats as possible in the run up to Spring Festival, and warned passengers there was little choice, particularly when it comes to berths.

"The comfortable berth tickets are limited no matter how many trains we add, so passengers should be more flexible in choosing seats, especially as Spring Festival is just around the corner," they said. Their advice was for passengers to travel as soon as possible and take whatever seats are available.

The rail sector also launched a nationwide campaign against ticket touting and fake tickets.

Since January 17, a total of 4,561 touts have been arrested and 47 illegal ticket rings have been cracked.

On Sunday air transport also entered its peak phase, with 724 aeroplanes landing and taking off from the country's largest airport, Beijing's Capital International Airport.

Sources with the airport said between 7 am and 9 am and 1 pm to 4 pm are the busiest times and urged passengers to do their best to avoid traveling then or clogging the airport by arriving to early for flights.

The roads are also witnessing a surge in traffic, and there has been a spate of fatal accidents in the past few days.

The Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Communications released an urgent notice highlighting road transport safety.

On January 28, two buses crashed in Gansu Province, killing 13 and leaving 18 badly injured.

The same day, a bus collided with a lorry in Jilin Province, which left 18 dead and "dozens" of people injured.

On January 26, an overloaded passenger bus plunged down a 50-metre-deep valley in Lingyun County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, killing 18 and injuring 17.

The day before that horrific accident, a series of car crashes in Anhui and Shanxi Provinces claimed a total of 17 lives.

Sources with the Ministry of Public Security said most of those accidents were the result of speeding, over-loading or driver fatigue.

Poor weather conditions, such as fog and snow, also partly contributed to the accidents, the sources said.

The Ministry of Communications has sent special inspection teams to major national roads and motor ways, while local traffic police were mobilized to carry out more frequent patrols on major roads to curb the problem of overloading and speeding.

Statistics show that the number of journeys during the 40-day peak travel season is expected to reach 1.82 billion, up 3.7 per cent over last year, of which an estimated 130 million will be by train, averaging 3.25 million per day.

(China Daily January 30, 2003)