Self-driving travel accounts for 80%! Pay attention to these road sections that are most likely to be congested during the Spring Festival travel period

The 2024 Spring Festival Transport officially started on January 26 and lasted until March 5, a total of 40 days.

According to previous predictions by the Ministry of Transport, the number of people moving throughout society during the Spring Festival this year will reach 9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 90% compared with 2023.

Forecast data also shows that 80% of the movements during this year’s Spring Festival travel are self-driving. Traditional commercial transportation, including railways, highways, civil aviation, and water passenger transport, accounted for only 20% of the approximately 1.8 billion passengers.

The structural changes during the Spring Festival did not start this year.

Before 2020, highway passenger volume has remained at around 2.4 billion passengers, accounting for 82%-86% of the commercial passenger flow during the Spring Festival.

From 2020 to 2022, affected by the epidemic, commercial transportation, including railways, highways, civil aviation, and water transportation, began to experience a cliff-like decline during the 2020 Spring Festival.

Among them, highway passenger transport has been hardest hit. The average passenger volume of highways in the three years from 2020 to 2022 is only one-third of that in 2019. During the Spring Festival travel period in 2023, the new coronavirus has been included in the "B Category B Pipeline", but the passenger volume of commercial transportation is only about 54% of that before the epidemic. Among them, highways dropped by 52%, civil aviation dropped by 24%, and railways dropped by 15%.

According to this year's forecast data, highway passenger volume may slightly exceed the 1.169 billion passenger volume level in 2023, but it is far from the peak transportation volume of more than 2 billion passengers.

The decline in road passenger transport demand has directly affected the number of passenger vehicles and drivers. Data show that the number of highway operating vehicles in 2022 will drop by 28.6% compared with 2019, and the number of passenger seats will drop by 17.7%.

In contrast to the decline of highways, self-driving travel already accounted for 66% of total social mobility during last year’s Spring Festival travel period, and this year it is predicted that the proportion will further increase to 80%.

The improvement of self-driving travel is closely related to automobile consumption. At the end of 2022, there were 278.73 million private cars and 166.85 million private cars, an increase of 71.43 million and 40.96 million respectively compared with 2018.

In contrast, passenger traffic on railways and civil aviation recovered quickly and increased after the epidemic. According to forecast data for the Spring Festival in 2024, railway passenger traffic will increase by 17% year-on-year compared with 2019, and civil aviation passenger traffic will increase by 9.6% year-on-year.

Self-driving travel has become the most important mode of transportation during the Spring Festival travel period, and congestion has become a new problem.

According to the forecast of the Ministry of Transport, the peak number of vehicles during the Spring Festival this year is expected to occur on February 17, and the peak number of expressway vehicles is expected to reach 65.2 million, which is about 1.75 times the average traffic volume of the road network during the Spring Festival travel period. Among them, the peak traffic volume of passenger cars will reach 62.7 million.

We found a latest congestion forecast report for 2024 to see where the congested road sections are concentrated.

According to the "2024 Spring Festival Holiday Travel Forecast Report" released by Baidu Maps, the Highway Science Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport and other institutions, the change trend of highway traffic during the Spring Festival in 2024 is relatively close to that in 2023, but the total volume will exceed the previous few years. During the same period last year, it showed the characteristics of “longer duration and higher traffic flow”. It is expected that the last day of the Spring Festival holiday, the eighth day of the first lunar month, will usher in the double peak of highway traffic and congestion during the Spring Festival holiday.

Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai, etc. are popular places for relocation during the Spring Festival in 2024. In terms of destinations, Fuyang and Bozhou in Anhui, Shangqiu and Zhoukou in Henan are expected to have a higher net inflow of vehicles. Maoming in Guangdong, Shangrao in Jiangxi, Heze in Shandong and other places are also in the top ten.

According to the report, during the peak outbound travel period during the Spring Festival holiday in 2024, the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, Jiangyi Expressway, Fuyin Expressway, Yanluo Expressway, Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway, Shanghai-Kunming Expressway, and Changyan Expressway Some sections of highways are prone to congestion.

In terms of return travel during the Spring Festival, it is predicted that during the peak return travel period during the Spring Festival holiday in 2024, Sisu Expressway, Nanchong Ring Expressway, Chuxin Expressway, Quannan Expressway, Shantou-Zhan Expressway, Zhangzhang Expressway, and Baoji Transit Expressway Some sections of expressways are prone to congestion.

In addition to highway sections, highway toll stations during the Spring Festival are also important congestion points.

The report predicts that during the 2024 Spring Festival holiday, expressway toll stations such as the Changshaxi Toll Station, Dali Toll Station, Chenhai Highway Toll Station, Huai'an North Toll Station, Wenzhou North Toll Station, and Yangshuo Highway Toll Station will be prone to congestion.

Railway and civil aviation ticket bookings are very popular.

During the Spring Festival this year, it is expected that railways across the country will carry 480 million passengers, with an average of 12 million passengers per day. Compared with the Spring Festival in 2023, it will increase by 37.9%. Compared with the Spring Festival in 2019, it will increase by 18%. Civil aviation passenger traffic is expected to exceed 80 million, an increase of 9.8% from 2019 and an increase of 44.9% from 2023, which is expected to hit a record high.

According to Qunar platform data, the top 10 popular destinations for Spring Festival travel tickets are Chongqing, Chengdu, Beijing, Kunming, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Harbin, Wuhan, Changsha, and Guiyang.

Shanghai-Chongqing, Shanghai-Chengdu, Beijing-Harbin, Chengdu-Chongqing, and Beijing-Shenyang are the most popular inter-provincial routes.

Guangzhou South Railway Station, Chengdu East Railway Station and Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station will become the three most popular hubs for the Spring Festival in 2024. As "Erbin" has been promoted to a popular tourist city, Harbin Station has also ranked among the top ten popular hubs.

In terms of civil aviation, the number of ticket bookings for departures from February 6-8, 2024 has exceeded the same period in 2019 by nearly 10%. Spring Festival air ticket bookings have increased significantly since January 5, and tourist routes are booming: As of January 25, many economy class flights on typical tourist routes such as Beijing-Xishuangbanna, Shanghai-Dali, and Hangzhou-Sanya departing before New Year’s Eve have been sold out .

Tongcheng data shows that the top ten popular destinations for domestic routes are: Harbin, Chongqing, Chengdu, Kunming, Beijing, Sanya, Guiyang, Shanghai, Xi'an, and Guangzhou. Among them, Harbin’s popularity rose from fourth place in the same period in 2023 to first place.