Passengers walk out of Hangzhou Railway Station during the 2019 Spring Festival travel rush. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]

Hangzhou has fully prepared for the annual Spring Festival travel rush, which is set to begin on Jan 10 and run until Feb 18.

This year's Spring Festival travel rush is 11 days ahead of last year’s. Regarded as the largest population migration in the world, this year's Spring Festival will primarily see students on winter vacation, migrant workers, and tourists traveling in this period.

It is estimated that Hangzhou will transport 30.42 million people in total during the busy travel rush, a year-on-year increase of 1.1 percent.

The number of passengers leaving Hangzhou by train is estimated to be around 9.1 million, increasing by 7.1 percent than last year.

During the busy travel rush, Hangzhou will add 99 trains and a number of buses to help transport passengers.

Smart technologies will be adopted to help passengers avoid waiting in long lines. If passengers forget to bring their ID card, they can use an identity-verification machine to receive a temporary one by themselves. The whole process will take no longer than 30 seconds.

Hangzhou East Railway Station has employed 5G-powered robots to help address security issues.

Estimates say that around 5,460 planes will take off and land in Hangzhou during the Spring Festival holiday, an increase of 2.5 percent year-on-year.

The Hangzhou airport will increase the Hangzhou-Phuket Island and Hangzhou-Cebu routes to meet tourists’ needs for traveling to Southeast Asian countries.

Hangzhou subway will also prolong its operation hours to address the transportation challenge during the travel rush.

In addition, a motorcade made up of 2,000 taxis will be at service at Hangzhou East Railway Station during the peak passenger flow.