China's railways carry more passengers in first 15 days of travel peak season

BEIJING, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's railways have transported 70.62 million passengers since Jan.30 when the annual Spring Festival travel peak season began.

A spokesman from the Ministry of Railways said Sunday the the figure was an increase of 709,000 year on year.

"The transportation is on the whole orderly, though it has been disrupted by the freezing weather in parts of the country.There have been no serious cases in which large number of travelers were stranded," said the spokesman.

The travel peak season, or Chunyun (spring transportation), which will end March 10, is an annual test on the country's transportation systems.

To cope with the travel peak season, the railway authorities across the country have mobilized 7,657 additional trains to transport the surging number of travelers before Spring Festival.

The ministry also intensified crackdown on train ticket scalping and detained 4,442 scalpers, coupled with a seizure of 28,000 tickets.

Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese Lunar New Year, is the most important traditional Chinese festive event in a year and is an occasion for reunions of family members, relatives and friends, completed with plenty of eating and fun-making. The weeklong Spring Festival holiday this year began Saturday.

The ministry estimated a total of 2.54 billion journeys would be made in the 40 days of mass passenger transportation for the Chinese Lunar New Year, which fell Sunday this year.