China boosts train and bus services as workers cut Lunar New Year travels short

Chinese provinces launch extra transport services as migrant workers return to coastal cities to get a leg up in sluggish job market

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Travellers line up to board a train at a railway station in the east China city of Nantong in Jiangsu province on Monday ahead of Lunar New Year. Photo: AP

Published: 6:00pm, 2 Feb 2025Updated: 6:13pm, 2 Feb 2025

Transport providers in China’s inland provinces are launching extra bus and train services as migrant workers cut their Lunar New Year travels short to get an earlier start in the sluggish job market.

The number of returning travellers usually peaks on the last two days of the national holiday, which ends on Tuesday.

But since Friday, several inland provinces, including Sichuan, Henan and Hubei, have organised hundreds of special buses and trains to ferry migrant workers to coastal provinces, according to mainland media reports.

The reports said train stations and highways were flooded with early-returners heading to the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas for work.

The Ministry of Transport said on Saturday that the peak had arrived early this year.

The ministry said a big increase in the flow of returning migrant workers meant that more than 304 million people travelled on transport systems throughout the country on Friday, 7 per cent higher than the total at the same point in the holiday last year.

The number of travellers rose to more than 308 million on Saturday as railways across the country added nearly 800 extra passenger trains.