3.62 billion trips expected over Chinese New Year travel period

The Spring Festival travel period (chunyun) began on Thursday, with over 3.62 billion trips expected over the next 40 days. You should stay home. 

More than 258 million people are expected to travel by rail, with 620,000 passengers expected to depart Beijing on Thursday alone. An estimated 2.4 million passengers will travel on the Beijing-Guangzhou line, up 21.5 percent from 2012. 

A total of 860,000 coaches will be traveling on roads and 21,000 ships will be sailing, according to the Ministry of Transport.

Over 400,000 flights will transport passengers during the Spring Festival travel period. 

[Image via Xinhua]