Chunyun
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As Chunyun ( Chinese 春運 / 春运 , Pinyin Chunyun ) the increased volume of traffic in which is China because of the Chinese New Year referred. The Chunyun period is 40 days and begins in January or February. Many Chinese who have moved to the urbanized centers in the east of the country because of the better employment opportunities return to the rural regions in the west during the Chunyun to celebrate the New Year with their families. At the same time, students from Chinese universities use their vacation time to travel across the country. For 2015, it is estimated that 3.7 billion trips were made, 2.8 billion of which were by public transport . In comparison, the population of the People's Republic of China in 2015 was 1.37 billion people. Chunyun is therefore often referred to as the largest annual migratory movement in the world.
history
In the 1970s, the Chinese economy saw the beginning of a period of growth that particularly affected the cities in the east such as Beijing and Shanghai and the cities in the south such as Shenzhen , Guangzhou and Dongguan . Workers from the rural provinces in the west of the country set off for these cities to benefit from the better income opportunities. The trips were mainly made with the state-owned Chinese railway company , which in the 1970s still carried 70% of the total annual passenger traffic. At that time, the coaches, which usually have around 120 seats, were filled with up to 250 people and their luggage. On a 15-hour drive, it was not uncommon to build up delays of 30 hours. In the years that followed, the proportion of road traffic during the Chunyun increased; today, more than half of the traffic is carried out by road.
Chinese domestic tourism has been playing an increasing role since 2000. The number of rail journeys doubled between 2003 and 2014. In 2010, domestic tourism accounted for 1.61 billion journeys during the Chunyun.
Effects on traffic
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For China's transportation infrastructure, the Chunyun season brings the busiest days of the year with it. In comparison, air traffic is hardly affected as it is not affordable for most Chinese. Bus companies offer additional journeys, the railway company provides special trains. Long traffic jams form on the east-west connecting roads.
Before the New Year festival, the load direction is from east to west, after the holiday in the middle of Chunyun it is reversed. Tourism is concentrated in the period after the New Year celebrations, so the second half of Chunyun has the highest passenger numbers. On the way to the western provinces by public transport, centrally located inland cities such as Zhengzhou or Xi'an are important hubs for transfer passengers. The annual passenger volume of the Zhengzhou railway junction ranks second in the nationwide comparison, although Zhengzhou is not among the ten largest Cities in China.
The number of train tickets available is often insufficient to meet demand. In the past there was therefore a pronounced trade in tickets at inflated prices on the black market , which was served by corruption within the railway company. For example, in 2005 Zhixiang Liu, the brother of then-President of the Railway Ministry, Zhijun Liu, was convicted of illegally reselling tickets worth 36 million yuan. Zhijun Liu himself was also convicted of corruption in 2011 and released from office. As a result, personalized, non-transferable tickets were introduced from Chunyun 2010; ID checks take place when boarding a train. In order to cope with the high rush at train stations, temporary counters were set up at Chunyun. However, most Chinese now reserve their tickets online . Online booking has been possible since January 2010, and since December 2013 also via mobile app .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Zhenhua Chen, Kingsley E. Haynes: Chinese Railways in the Era of High-Speed. Emerald Group, Bingley 2015, ISBN 978-1-78441-985-1 .
- ↑ a b Earth's biggest human migration on a map. In: CNN. Retrieved December 16, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c d Chinese New Year 2015: Chunyun, the largest annual human migration in the world. In: International Business Times UK. Retrieved December 16, 2015 .