China's railway system served a record 24.8 million passengers on May 1, marking the highest single-day ridership ever. This surge occurred during the International Labor Day holiday, which ran until May 5. The China National Railway Group reported today that a total of 117 million train tickets were sold through various booking channels for the entire holiday period. On May 2, approximately 19.7 million passengers utilized the railway services. The passenger volume on May 1 this year exceeded that of May 1, 2025, by 1.7 million.

These figures highlight robust travel activity across China during the holiday, signaling a potential increase in consumer spending, which has remained subdued since the Covid-19 pandemic in the world's second-largest economy. To accommodate the heightened travel demand, the railway network added thousands of extra trains. The national transport agency had previously forecast that passenger traffic across railways, expressways, civil aviation, and waterways nationwide would peak on the first day of the holiday. Consumer spending in cultural, tourism, and cinema sectors also experienced strong growth.

Passengers at a train station in Yangzhou city, Jiangsu province, China, on April 29. *AFP*

According to Jiang Yiyi, an expert in tourism and sports at Beijing Sport University, the growth in holiday consumption stems from the continuous improvement of China's overall economy. Furthermore, local efforts to innovate cultural and tourism products, create new consumption scenarios, and enhance service quality have further supported the sustainable recovery of the holiday tourism market.

In recent years, China has actively promoted high-speed rail construction to enhance transportation connectivity. Between 2021 and 2025, the country built and put into operation 12,000 km of high-speed railways. As of December 2025, China's total high-speed rail network exceeded 50,000 km, representing a 32% increase compared to the end of 2020. This makes it the longest high-speed rail network globally, surpassing the combined length of all other countries and extending approximately 10,000 km longer than Earth's circumference.

China's high-speed rail system now serves 97% of cities with populations over 500,000, transporting about 16 million people daily, equivalent to the population of a megacity. This extensive system connects major economic centers and urban clusters, as well as less developed counties and regions, playing a vital role in boosting their socio-economic development.

Huyen Le (Source: AFP, Xinhua, Global Times)