High-speed trains with comfort, Starbucks coffee onboard, free Wi-Fi in stations, and phone apps for ticket purchase. As the Spring Festival travel rush kicked off on Sunday, hundreds of millions of Chinese found that their journeys for holiday homecomings have become much smoother and faster.

This year's Spring Festival travel rush, or chunyun, reflect show China's economic boom, huge investment in infrastructure and fast growth of information technologies have redefined the once grueling experience of going home for the Chinese New Year, which falls on February 8 this year.

At Shanghai Railway Station, the ticket office is no longer crowded. In previous years' travel rush, the ticket office was crammed every night with tens of thousands of people who had to line up all night to buy a ticket.

But this year, about 83 percent of tickets were purchased online.

China's railway service has made itself accessible through websites and mobile phone apps, said Zhu Wenzhong, passenger traffic director at Shanghai Railway Bureau. Passengers now can order onboard meals on the phone app before boarding. Beverages made by Starbucks are available on certain trains.

Across China, free Wi-Fi is offered in some train stations and electronic ticketing machines have been placed in bus stations. An online system that integrates bus operators in 13 provinces has been launched.

Chinese car-hailing app Didi rolled out a carpooling service that can pair traveling needs across the country, making it possible for drivers to take on others when traveling home for Lunar New Year.

This year, Gong Xinyi, a college student in Shanghai, returned to her hometown in Jiangxi province in one-third of the time it used to take.

A new high-speed route has linked Gong's hometown with Shanghai and shortened her journey to three hours. Last year, she had to take a 7-hour-train ride and an additional 3-hour bus trip.

Gong's faster journey is possible because China has been investing heavily to expand its high-speed train network, which is already the world's largest.

More than 60 percent of the trains serving in the Spring Festival rush this year are bullet trains that can run up to 350 km/h.

Around 3,300 kilometers of new lines were added to the high-speed network last year, bringing the total length to 19,000 kilometers - 60 percent of the world's total.

(China Daily 01/26/2016 page3)