Cross-regional trips in China touch 180m per day, up 5.4%

Travelers in China made 64.6 billion cross-regional trips last year, at an average of 180 million trips a day, as the country's vast transport network continued to grow and improve, according to a report released on Thursday by the Ministry of Transport.

The figure of 180 million marks a 5.4 percent increase in cross-regional mobility compared to 2023, reflecting stronger demand and improved connectivity nationwide. Of those daily trips, more than 160 million were made by road, over 11 million by train, about 2 million by air and 700,000 by water.

The figures were revealed in the latest annual report on the development of the transportation sector, which highlights robust investment and widespread infrastructure growth across the country.

According to the report, fixed-asset investment in transportation totaled 3.8 trillion yuan ($520 billion) in 2024, maintaining a high level. The core framework of the national integrated transportation network now stretches over 260,000 kilometers, reaching about 90 percent of its planned completion.

High-speed rail continued its rapid expansion, with 2,457 kilometers of new lines opened last year. More than a third of provincial regions now have high-speed rail access to all cities under their administration. The expressway system grew by 7,032 km, allowing over two-thirds of provincial regions to provide highway connections to every county.

Air services covered 92.6 percent of China's city-level jurisdictions and reached 91.2 percent of the national population, while 23,300 express delivery routes were added across the country in the year 2024.

In rural areas, road investment remained above 400 billion yuan for the eighth straight year. A total of 164,100 km of rural roads were newly built or upgraded last year. Village-level logistics stations rose to 426,700 nationwide — an increase of 61,600 — enhancing delivery capacity particularly in western regions such as Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions.

Cargo transport remained strong, with commercial freight volume hitting 56.9 billion metric tons, up 3.9 percent year-on-year. Express delivery services handled 193.7 billion parcels, or an average of 530 million per day — a 19.2 percent rise from 2023.

Internationally, China-Europe freight train services surpassed 100,000 trips last year, while more than 10,000 intermodal train trips ran along the New Western Land-Sea Corridor.

Civil aviation last year maintained a flight punctuality rate of 87.1 percent — its seventh consecutive year above 80 percent.