On April 29, a reporter from The Paper learned from China Railway Shanghai Bureau Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Railway Group") that the 2025 May Day holiday transportation of the Yangtze River Delta Railway was launched today, and it is expected to send 2.94 million passengers on the same day. The transportation period for this May Day holiday will be from April 29 to May 6, totaling 8 days. During this period, the Yangtze River Delta Railway is expected to send 28.8 million passengers, an increase of 6% year-on-year, with an average daily passenger volume of 3.6 million. The peak day is expected to hit a new high in a single-day passenger volume.

This year's May Day holiday is the second longer holiday after the Spring Festival. Appropriate temperatures and continuous holidays will further stimulate people's enthusiasm for medium and long-distance travel across provinces, and the travel demand within 1,500 kilometers has been further released. The passenger flow components will be mainly tourism and visiting relatives. Compared with the Qingming Festival holiday that just passed, it will have a wider travel range, longer peak hours, and larger daily passenger flow.

From the distribution of passenger flow, it is expected to show the travel pattern of concentrated departures for three days before holiday transportation (April 29 to May 1) and concentrated return two days after holiday transportation (May 5 to 6); among them, the peak passenger flow forecast will appear on May 1, and the single-day passenger shipment record set by the Yangtze River Delta Railway on the Qingming Festival this year (April 4).

From the perspective of passenger flow, many places in the Yangtze River Delta have a hot passenger flow to Beijing, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Changsha, Qingdao and other places; frequent personnel flows between the centers and sub-center cities of the Yangtze River Delta such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Hefei and tourist cities such as Yangzhou, Lianyungang, Yancheng, and Huangshan. The popular routes mainly include direct and in-management high-speed rail lines such as Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Hong Kong, Hangzhou-Shenzhen, Shanghai-Kunming, Shanghai-Ningxia, Shanghai-Hangzhou, Ninghang, Hefu, Ning'an, Shanghai-Sutong, Lianzhen, Xulian and other direct and in-management high-speed rail lines.

In response to the expectation of a significant increase in passenger flow during the May Day holiday, the Yangtze River Delta Railway Department coordinated the capacity arrangements and adopted three batches of basic operation plan, "May Day" temporary passenger plan, and emergency plan to arrange capacity. The total number of passenger trains will reach about 1,600 pairs. On the basis of the 29 pairs of direct peak lines in the figure, 56 pairs of direct passenger trains are planned to be added, including the high-speed rail lying trains running on April 30, Shanghai to Huizhou North D913/2 and D911/4, Shanghai Hongqiao to Foshan West D931/4, D933/2, Shanghai Hongqiao to Guangzhou South D935/8, D937/6, Shanghai Hongqiao to Zhuhai D941/4/1, D942/3/2, and Hong Kong West Kowloon to Shanghai Hongqiao G900/899; the direction of the additional direct passenger trains is mainly between the Yangtze River Delta, South China, Central Plains, Northwest China, and North China. On the basis of the 39-pair peak line in the pipeline, 174.5 pairs of passenger trains in the pipeline are planned to be added; the main direction of the additional passenger trains in the pipeline are the locations of popular tourist cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Suzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Lianyungang, Yancheng, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Lishui, Quzhou, Huangshan, Xuancheng, Wuhu, Fuyang, etc.

In addition, during the May Day holiday transportation period, the railway department will take measures such as organizing the reconnection of EMU trains and adding vehicles to ordinary speed trains to increase capacity and seats; according to the analysis of passenger transport big data, we will continue to pay attention to the sales of train tickets, and launch emergency plans as needed to maximize the convenience of passengers' holiday travel.

According to Shanghai Railway Group, as of 8:00 on April 29, from April 29 to May 1, tickets to many direct routes in the Yangtze River Delta to Wuhan, Changsha, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Qingdao, etc. were basically sold out; tickets to Zhejiang, Shanghai to Xuzhou, Bengbu, Hefei, Anqing, etc., Shanghai, Nanjing to Yancheng, Huaian, Yangzhou, etc., and Shanghai, Hangzhou to Ningbo, Taizhou, Wenzhou and other directions are in short supply. In order to cope with the concentrated travel of passengers during the holidays, today (April 29), the Yangtze River Delta Railway Department, on the basis of opening the peak line, added 135 passenger trains, organized 238 EMU trains to reconnect and operate, and added 100 ordinary-speed vehicles.

The railway department reminds that there are many dynamic trains during the May Day holiday transportation period. Passengers are requested to pay attention to station announcements or railway 12306 website information in time and arrange their itinerary in advance. Passengers who have not purchased tickets can use the alternate ticket purchase function in China Railway 12306 website and 12306 mobile APP to purchase tickets; many cities in the Yangtze River Delta have two or more railway stations. Be sure to confirm the ride information before traveling, and do not delay the trip because of going to the wrong station.