China is projected to handle 265 million passenger trips during the upcoming May Day holiday, close to the traffic during the same period in 2019, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The five-day May Day holiday will last from May 1 to 5. Some 53 million passenger trips are expected to be handled each day. The number of daily passenger trips is expected to nearly double from current 28 million passenger trips each day, according to Sun Wenjian, spokesman for the ministry, at a news conference on Thursday.

The peak traffic is expected to fall on May 1 and 5.

To curb the spread of the COVID-19, Chinese people were encouraged to stay put during the Spring Festival travel rush from January to March. A traffic boom was occurred in early April during the three-day Tomb Sweeping holiday. The May Day holiday is expected to carry on another rush.