The number of vehicles that have left Shenzhen in recent days for the 2022 Spring Festival holiday has been reduced by 40 percent over the same period last year, police said. They estimated the travel peak is expected to arrive in the last week ahead of the holiday.
Police estimated more than 2 million vehicles will stay in the city for the Spring Festival holiday which will start from Jan. 31 and end on Feb. 6.
Police also estimated the peak for returning vehicles from outside of the city will start Feb. 5, the fifth day of the first month of the Chinese New Year.
Due to the recent COVID-19 wave and tightened control measures, both the peaks for vehicles leaving and returning to the city will be delayed and more people will stay put in Shenzhen for the Spring Festival holiday. The other two peaks will be Feb. 15 on Lantern Festival and Feb. 19-20, the first weekend after the Lantern Festival.
Since Jan. 7, 10 days before the start of the Spring Festival transport season, Shenzhen traffic police have put eight inspection stations including two provincial-level inspection stations into operation. So far, a total of 976 traffic violations have been handled, including 62 cases of overloaded passengers and 73 cases of overloaded cargoes, seven cases of fatigue driving and 48 cases of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Passengers leaving the city need to provide a negative nucleic acid test report issued within 48 hours. At the entrance to Terminal 3 of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, passengers can scan their ID cards or use mobile phones to show their health codes and COVID test reports. The test reports are acceptable in printed or digital forms. Arriving passengers are required to go through nucleic acid tests on arrival, are advised not to take public transportation and wait for the test results in their homes.
Shenzhen airport also reminded passengers that boarding gates between 501 and 583 are in the satellite hall.
To improve the efficiency, Shenzhen North Railway Station installed dozens of devices at the entrances for passengers to display health codes, nucleic acid test status and vaccination status by scanning ID cards. It takes about 4-5 seconds for one check.