People line up to enter the subway station outside the Beijing Railway Station on Friday, the last day of the seven-day National Day holiday, after their return from traveling or visiting home during the vacation. (Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily)
As the national weeklong vacation drew to an close on Friday, reality showed again that getting back to town can be just as hard as leaving it, especially for residents of major metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai.
A record-breaking 12.57 million people were estimated to travel by train on Friday alone, according to China Railway.
Similar mass migrations were common during this year's National Day vacation, with more than 10 million people traveling by train on each of the eight days－Sept 30 to Friday－of the holiday. That brought the total of train trips to 108 million, up 9.3 percent year-on-year, during the total 10-day travel spree from Sept 28 to Oct 7, according to the company.
And it wasn't just the trains, the roads were jammed with travelers, too. According to the Beijing municipal government, 1.376 million cars made their way along city highways from midnight to 4 pm on Thursday, 12.55 percent more than during the same period last year.
To cope with the situation, the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau sent out fleets of tow trucks to points along jammed highways－like Beijing-Tibet, Beijing-Kaifeng, Beijing-Chengde－where accidents were common, to deal with any problems and "clear the way for cars returning home".
An increasing number of Chinese went on road tours during the National Day holiday, in part because the government has waived the highway fee since 2012, as it also does with the Spring Festival, Tomb Sweeping Day and Labor Day holidays.
Bad weather delayed flights in Beijing and Shanghai.
