Some 170,000 passengers left Hefei, capital city of Anhui province by air, train and bus on Sunday, the first day of this year's Spring Festival travel rush season. They went to their hometowns for a traditional family reunion.

The local rail system handled roughly 60,000 passenger trips on Sunday and is expected to see travel peaks from students and migrant workers on Jan 12 and 13.

Students accounted for 40 percent of the rail passengers, many of whom were headed for the cities of Wuhu, Huangshan, Xuancheng, Fuyang and Bengbu.

To ease the upcoming passenger congestion, Hefei Railway Station added 14.5 pairs of temporary trains, mainly plying between the city and Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Fuyang, starting Jan 8. They will put another 21 into operation before the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday which is from Jan 22 to 28.

"Bus tickets are easy to get. I waited in a line with only a few people ahead of me before getting my ticket," said Mr. Li, who was traveling to Tongling city from the Hefei Tourism Bus Station.

Local road transport agencies said that as long as weather conditions are favorable, bus stations will continue to board passengers and students as they arrive.

Eight bus stations in Hefei handled about 100,000 road trips on the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush, a worker with the Hefei Administration of Road Transport said.

Hefei Luogang Airport said it handled 130 outgoing and incoming flights with more than 12,000 passengers on board on Sunday. It is estimated that 530,000 passenger trips by air will be made in the city during the travel rush period, up 10 percent from last year. Air traffic will reach its peak between Jan 19 and 21 and between Jan 29 and 30.

Edited by Fu Bo and Rakhee