China reports 20% rise in inter-regional trips on first day of New Year holiday

BEIJING -- China recorded over 207 million inter-regional passenger trips on the first day of the three-day New Year holiday on Thursday, up 20.3 percent year on year, data from the Ministry of Transport showed on Friday.

Road travel accounted for the majority of passenger movement with 186.28 million trips -- up 17.5 percent from a year earlier.

Railway passenger volumes totaled 18.56 million trips, surging 67.9 percent year on year. Waterway transport carried 684,000 passengers, which was up 2.9 percent, while civil aviation handled 1.95 million passenger trips, 10.3 percent down from that of the first day of last year.

On the same day, China's postal sector collected 451 million parcels and delivered 531 million nationwide, according to official data.