CR carried 818 million passengers between January and June, with passenger numbers beginning to recover from March as the country began to loosen its lockdown. 166 million passengers travelled in June, with an average of 5.53 million passengers a day, up 9.4% year-on-year.
In order to accelerate the recovery of passenger numbers, CR says it is making use of recently-opened lines to optimise services, and is also looking to track passenger flows in real-time using big data. This will allow the timetable to be dynamically adjusted to meet demand. CR is also looking to introduce electronic tickets across the entire network, with more than 2400 stations already equipped to accept them.
CR operated 6870 passenger trains a day in June, up 6.6% on the previous month, with 7.53 million passengers travelling on June 25 during the national dragon boat festival, a new daily record.
Freight
CR carried 1.69 billion tonnes of freight in the first half of 2020, a 3.6% year-on-year increase. Freight revenue was Yuan 187.7bn ($US 26.8bn), down 4.2% year-on-year. The average daily volume carried was 10 million tonnes in June, a new monthly record.
CR says it looked to capitalise on the advantages of rail freight during the pandemic, including its ability to carry large amounts of freight, and established “green channels” and priority services to ensure shipments were delivered safely and on time.
China - Europe freight flows also increased, with 5122 services in the first half of 2020, up 36% year-on-year, including 1169 services in June, a new monthly record. The total volume of freight carried to Europe was 461,000 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 41%. CR delivered 367 million items of equipment to assist in the fight against coronavirus, weighing 2.7 million tonnes.
