Nearly 3b trips recorded during Spring Festival travel rush

BEIJING -- China's 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, which concluded Monday this year, witnessed 2.97 billion passenger trips, according to official data.

The traffic is basically the same as that of last year, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The annual travel rush around the festival, when people travel to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year with their families, puts the transport system to the test.

To cope with the surging traffic, China's railway, road and air network put more vehicles into service.

According to third-party surveys, 74.8 percent of the travelers were either satisfied with or saw improvement in the transport work this year, up 3.8 percentage points from last year.