With the seven-day National Day holiday just around the corner, various departments around the country have been busy preparing for the coming traffic flow.

Civil air administrations have approved 2,700 extra flights during the holiday period, 14 per cent more than last year's increase.

The Ministry of Railways has also added more trains to cope with the crush of people buying train tickets during the "golden week." The ministry predicts a total of 35.5 million passengers will take trains between last Sunday (September 28) and October 7.

The peak traffic flow will be seen on October 1, with 3.85 million passengers expected hitting the tracks.

Today is expected to be the peak day for passengers taking medium and long distance journeys, with an estimated flow of 1.05 million passengers, 25,000 more than last year on this day.

Beijing, one of the most popular destinations for tourists, has been preparing for tourists from all parts of the country.

According to the Beijing Holiday Tourism Management Team, Beijing Capital International Airport is prepared to handle over 700 flights every day.

The local railway bureau put an additional 33 temporary trains into operation yesterday for the duration of the holidays, and the Beijing Public Transportation Company plans to dispatch 10,300 buses every day.

It is expected that the local bus system will carry 87 million passengers from today to October 7, and over 13.5 million people will use the subway system during the same period.

To inform tourists about important travel information, the Ministry of Public Security said it will release daily traffic information in popular tourism areas from today to October 8.

(China Daily September 30, 2003)