The Hangzhoudong Railway Station teems with passengers during the summer travel rush. [Photo by Tang Xinyan/tidenews.com.cn]

The railway network that serves Hangzhou — capital of East China's Zhejiang province — wrapped up the 62-day summer travel season on Aug 31 with a record-breaking 22.13 million passenger trips, up 8.2 percent year-on-year.

From July 1 to Aug 31, the city's railway stations handled 357,000 trips a day on average, peaking at 454,000 on Aug 16 — the highest single-day figure ever recorded.

Among major hubs, Hangzhoudong Railway Station, or Hangzhou East Railway Station, led the surge with 14.73 million trips, followed by Hangzhou Station with 2.07 million and Hangzhounan Railway Station, or Hangzhou South Station, with 1.42 million trips.

The summer rush was driven by a boom in leisure tourists, family visits and student trips for summer programs, with children's ticket sales rising 9.6 percent and student ticket sales up 3 percent year-on-year.

Passenger flows also remained high over weekends due to concerts, sports events and tourism.

To meet rising demand, local rail authorities added 2,352 extra trains to popular destinations including Shanghai, Wenzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Guangzhou, Nanchang, Wuhan and Xiamen.

Enhanced passenger services also played a key role. As part of the  initiative, over 11,600 priority service appointments were provided during the summer rush.

These services catered to unaccompanied elderly and pregnant passengers, travelers with visual or hearing impairments, passengers needing wheelchairs or stretchers and those traveling with guide dogs.

A railway assistant helps a passenger at a station during the travel rush. [Photo by Tang Xinyan/tidenews.com.cn]