Guangzhou railway bureau carries record 20.72 million passengers over National Day holiday

The Guangzhou railway bureau (国铁广州局) carried 20.721 million passengers during the National Day holiday from October 1 to 7, a record, according to reports by Yicai and Jiemian on October 8. Jiemian, citing the bureau and CCTV News, said the total was up 1.86 million passengers, or 9.9%, from a year earlier, and attributed the rise to the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays falling together this year. [ 2 , 3 ]

October 1 was the busiest day, with 3.507 million passengers, a single-day record for the bureau, Jiemian reported. Guangzhou South station handled 1.049 million arriving and departing passengers that day, making it the first station on the national railway network to pass one million in a single day. High-speed rail carried 17.055 million passengers over the holiday, 82.3% of the total. [ 3 ]

According to the bureau's passenger transport centre, as cited by Jiemian, travel was mainly for tourism and family visits, with students, business travellers and migrant workers making up a smaller share. Traffic followed an N-shaped pattern, with outbound trips dominating early in the holiday and return trips later. Jiemian reported that return traffic remained heavy on October 8, with 2.388 million passengers expected that day. [ 3 ]

China News Service reported on October 6 that the bureau expected to carry 2.835 million passengers that day, the sixth day of the holiday, up 617,000 or 27.8% from the same day in 2025. Passengers were mainly returning from smaller cities and tourist destinations to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Changsha, it said. The bureau planned 3,835 trains on October 6, including 702 extra services, of which 107 were conventional passenger trains and 595 were bullet trains, mainly on the Beijing-Guangzhou, Hangzhou-Shenzhen, Shenzhen-Zhanjiang and Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong lines. It also planned 401 extra overnight high-speed trains in the early hours of October 7, mainly towards Changsha, Chaoshan and Zhanjiang. [ 1 ]

China News Service said the bureau used a smart dispatching platform and AI passenger-flow forecasting to allocate resources. Guangzhou South, Shenzhen North and Changsha South stations opened all exit channels, with volunteers guiding passengers, while Guangzhou Baiyun and Changsha stations kept ticket windows and manual ticket checks open for elderly passengers and people who do not use the internet. [ 1 ]