A new Record was born in China on May 1st. The Chinese railway system carried over 6.54 million passengers on a single day. The total number of passengers broke the record thanks to the new generation of high speed trains with more seats. After two years of total chaos during the Chinese New Year festivals, the Ministry of Railway boosted their capacity on April 1st this year.
The number of passengers was 641,000 more than May 1st 2008, a 10.9% jump. The ministry said an average 66.5 new passenger trains were put into use every day on the new schedule, with an increase of 238,000 more seats every day. The number of passengers on Friday has topped the previous daily passenger record.
May 1st is the Labor’s Day holiday in China, which used to be the second extended national holiday of the year (first is Spring Festival and third is the National Day on October 1st). However, started last year, Chinese get 3 days off instead of 7 days for the May holiday season. Over 75% of the travelers had made medium- or short-distance trips, to cope with the shorter holiday.