China Railway Corp, the rail network operator, started on Sunday to sell train tickets for next year's 40-day Spring Festival travel peak.

Passengers can book tickets for trains that operate on Feb 4 and 5, the first two days of the 2015 travel rush, which runs from Feb 4 until March 16.

Traditionally, Chinese people return home and spend Spring Festival, the most important Chinese feast day, with their families, and this creates an annual travel rush that is one of the world's largest regular human migrations. Spring Festival 2015 begins on Feb 19.

Normally, train tickets can only be booked 20 days ahead of the service. In order to help passengers obtain tickets for the busiest transport period, China Railway allows them to book 60 days before the date of their train travel during the annual peak.

The company said in a statement that for the coming rush period, it plans to operate 3,063 pairs of trains, an increase of 335 pairs from 2014.

During the 2014 rush period, about 266 million railway trips were made, up 12 percent from the previous year.

Travelers to the western provinces of Gansu, Guizhou and Qinghai, as well as the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, will be able to ride a bullet train home for the holiday.

High-speed railway services will expand to those underdeveloped regions starting Wednesday, according to China Railway Corp.

The railway network will also adopt new train schedules the same day, the company said.

When the new schedules begin, there will be 5,347 train services in China, 58 percent of which will be high-speed.

While many people still line up at stations or call rail operator hotlines to buy tickets, tech-savvy passengers increasingly make their bookings online or through applications.

App designers in China have realized the lucrative opportunities brought by millions of homebound passengers and more than 100 "ticket-grabbing applications" are available on app stores.

Some apps can follow the sales of tickets in real time and help users book tickets even when they are offline.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 12/08/2014 page4)