The travel peak coincided with school vacations and the tourism season. On the first day of the holiday, the network carried nearly 25 million people — more than ever in a single day.

As reported by CCTV+, these figures show the scale of domestic mobility in China and how the railway system is coping with unprecedented demand. Now, here are the details of this record-breaking travel campaign.

According to data released by China State Railway Group on Wednesday, over the eight-day May Day holiday period, China's railway network served a total of 158 million passengers.

The peak travel period began on April 29, two days before the start of the five-day May Day holiday.

This year, the May Day holiday coincided with spring break at primary and secondary schools across the country. This led to high demand for travel related to tourism, family visits, and leisure, which sustained strong passenger flows on the railway network.

At the beginning and end of the holiday, long-distance travel prevailed, while short-distance trips dominated the middle of the period.

On April 30, the day before the holiday, railway passenger traffic had already reached 19.79 million trips.

On May 1, the national railway network carried 24.844 million passengers, setting a new record for single-day passenger volume. The Yangtze River Delta railway network carried 4.738 million passengers that day, accounting for one-fifth of the national total.

On the first day of the holiday, Guangzhou Railway Administration carried 3.758 million passengers, while Beijing remained the top destination for railway travel during the holiday for several consecutive days.

During the peak period, China's railway system operated an average of more than 12,000 passenger trains per day.

From the evenings of April 29, April 30, May 1, May 4, and May 5 into the early hours of the following days, an average of 700 overnight high-speed trains ran daily on major high-speed rail lines such as Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou, and Beijing-Harbin. Key stations along these routes also switched to 24-hour operation to ensure convenient and efficient travel for passengers.

The number of themed tourist trains increased significantly during the peak period: from April 29 to May 5, a total of 68 such trains operated across various parts of China.