A total of 2.8 million vehicles will come in or out of Shenzhen during the eight-day National Day holiday period, and the travel peak for outbound vehicles is expected to arrive between Wednesday and Friday, according to a release by the Shenzhen traffic police.
The peak for vehicles coming and returning to Shenzhen will be Saturday and between Oct. 7-8, respectively, police said, based on big data.
Expressways like G15, S31, S33, Eastern Coastal Expressway and G4 are likely to be congested with outbound vehicles between Wednesday and Friday, while starting Saturday, the expressways will see heavy inbound traffic.
Meiguan Expressway (G94) will see around 16,000 vehicles a day coming to Shenzhen, police said, citing statistics from previous years, while Shenzhen-Shantou Expressway (a section of G15) will see 16,500 vehicles leaving the city each day. It is followed by Nanshan-Guangming Expressway (S33). Around 400,000 vehicles will come to Shenzhen during the holiday. Most vehicles arriving in Shenzhen from outside Guangdong will be from Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Within Guangdong, most vehicles coming to Shenzhen will be from Dongguan, Huizhou and Guangzhou.
Urban areas, eastern tourist attractions, business circles and shopping malls will see heavy traffic. Luohu will be the most seriously congested district, followed by Futian and Nanshan.
Police said surrounding areas in 10 scenic spots, including OCT East, Fairy Lake Botanical Garden, Lianhua Hill Park and Shenzhen Bay Park, are likely to be congested.
Police attribute the expected travel boom to a toll-free policy on expressways during public holidays, lifting of cross-province travel bans imposed during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic and good weather.
To relieve congestion and improve efficiency, Shenzhen police will initiate tidal lanes on the Eastern Coastal Expressway to improve efficiency and have advised drivers to eastern tourist attractions in Meisha and Dapeng to make reservations before their trips.
The temperatures will range between 24 and 27 degrees Celsius during the upcoming holiday. It will be cloudy with occasional showers.
Metro service to be extended
The Metro service will be extended by an hour to midnight Wednesday and Thursday.
Lines 1, 3, 6, 9 and 10 will continue to operate half-way final trains and Line 2, in the direction from Xinxiu to Chiwan, will be further extended to 12:30 a.m., the operator said.
Line 6 and Line 10, which were put into operation recently, will add two trains during rush hours Thursday, the first day of the National Day holiday, to increase its capacity.