China logs surge in passenger trips over 3-day break

An estimated 845.38 million passenger trips were made across China during the three-day Qingming Festival holiday, up 6 percent year on year, transportation authorities said on Monday. The daily average number of trips reached 281.79 million, according to the Ministry of Transport. Road trips accounted for 778.45 million, rising 5.8 percent from the same period last year, while railway trips hit 57.68 million, up 8.2 percent year on year. Waterway transport handled about 3.7 million passenger trips, an increase of 9.8 percent, and civil aviation carried approximately 5.5 million trips, down 1.3 percent. The holiday travel boom was driven by the overlap of the Qingming Festival and spring breaks for primary and secondary school students in many regions, which boosted family trips and parent-child tours. Returning home for tomb-sweeping and in-depth rural tours also boosted activity in rural areas, helping to extend consumption from major cities to towns and villages. (Xinhua) Edited by Priscilla Ng