Millions of residents traveled by public transport during the May Day holiday.

The Metro authority said 18.31 million passengers used the city's eight Metro lines during the three days from Thursday, using 790,000 extra tickets specially prepared for the increase in passengers.

With the holiday period reduced from a week to three days, more people opted for short-distance trips.

Some 30,000 passengers went from the Shanghai South Long-Distance Bus Station on 950 coach shuttles to other provinces on Thursday, breaking the station's daily turnover record.

Station officials said they sent away 100,000 passengers on Wednesday and over the three-day holiday dispatched more than 400 extra coach shuttles.

Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou and Yangzhou, cities in Shanghai's neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, were the favorite destinations.

The station authority said short visits to nearby Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces by coach had become popular because of the shortened holiday period.

The Hongqiao Airport immigration authority said the airport faced a peak of returning travelers on Saturday morning. The airport opened extra check-out channels in advance to deal with the crowds, immigration police said.

The airport handled more than 10,000 passengers in total during the four-day period starting Wednesday.

Transit buses transported about 22.6 million passengers during the three-day holiday including many locals paying visits to leisure sites in city suburbs.

The Olympic torch relay in Hong Kong also increased the number of passengers going to Hong Kong by train.

About 5,000 people left for Hong Kong by train between April 21 and Saturday, an increase of 11.6 percent over the same period a year earlier.

(Shanghai Daily May 5, 2008)