China sees surges in return trips as Spring Festival holiday comes to end

China’s Spring Festival travel rush has reached its halfway point, with cross-regional trips totaling 4.8 billion, setting new daily records as return-to-work traffic flows pick up the pace, according to data released on Sunday.

The 40-day travel rush, known as “chunyun” in Chinese, runs from Jan 14 to Feb 22 this year. It is considered the world’s largest annual human migration and coincides with China’s biggest traditional festival celebrations, a time when Chinese people return home for family reunions to celebrate the Chinese New Year, which fell on Jan 29 this year.

Statistics show that China recorded 4.8 billion cross-regional trips from Jan 14 to Feb 2, a 7.2 percent year-on-year increase, with over 300 million trips made daily for three consecutive days from Friday to Monday, all surpassing last year’s levels.

As return travel is peaking, railway passenger trips were estimated to reach 14.5 million on Sunday, up 1.2 million from the previous day. In response to freezing rain and snow, China Railway Nanchang Bureau Group Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the China Railway, the country’s railway operator, deployed 30 de-icing trains to conduct contact wire thermal running to remove ice.

“In sections of the Beijing-Kowloon Railway prone to icing due to high humidity and low temperatures, such as Jiujiang and Nanchang, we have four teams on 24/7 standby, ready to respond,” said Shi Weibin, deputy head of the operations division at Yingtan section of China Railway Nanchang Bureau.

On highways, about 300 million passenger trips were recorded nationwide on Sunday. Transportation and power authorities have ramped up efforts to improve charging infrastructure for new energy vehicles (NEVs).

Measures include upgrading charging pile capacity and deploying emergency charging stations to ease the charging pressure at highway service areas. In cities of Huai’an and Xuzhou in east China’s Jiangsu Province, local traffic and power departments have used big data from the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) to predict peak demand, issue charging guides, and direct vehicles to nearby service areas to reduce wait times.

“I planned my route using the Spring Festival charging guides before setting off, which helped me avoid peak hours and save time,” said an NEV driver.

Air travel remained strong, with 2.38 million passenger trips recorded on Sunday. Airlines and airports have maximized wide-body aircraft operations to accommodate rising demand.

Meanwhile, authorities in south China’s Guangdong and Hainan provinces have strengthened traffic management on key waterways, including the Qiongzhou Strait. Maritime officials are providing 24-hour supervision for roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) passenger ferries and issuing regular updates to ensure smooth operations.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum talked over phone on Sunday, discussing the U.S. decision to impose new tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, Trudeau’s office said on Sunday.

The two leaders agreed to work together on shared concerns and strengthen bilateral ties.

The phone talk came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump signed executive orders slapping 25-percent tariffs on certain Canadian imports and all Mexican imports.

In response, Canada will levy 25-percent tariffs on 30 billion Canadian dollars (21 billion U.S. dollars) worth of U.S. goods as of Tuesday, Trudeau announced after chairing the Cabinet meeting and hosting a virtual meeting with provincial and territorial premiers.

Trudeau said the tariffs would then be applied to another 125 billion Canadian dollars worth of goods in 21 days.

Meanwhile, Sheinbaum on Saturday instructed the Secretariat of Economy to implement tariff and non-tariff measures to defend Mexico’s interests in response to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.