Motorbike fleets fade out of Spring Festival travel rush

NANNING, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- As the clock struck 3:00 a.m., Gan Ganrong, a migrant worker in south China's Guangdong Province, left for his hometown together with his wife on a motorcycle for Lunar New Year family reunion.

Riding a motorbike home for their annual visit is almost a regular affair for the couple. It is a nearly 20-hour ride from Guangdong's Foshan City to their rural hometown in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"There used to be quite a number of riders on the road, resembling a motorbike fleet," Gan said. "But over the past three years, most of the fellow travelers who gave us company on the way home for over a decade gradually turned to other travel options."

Since the early 1990s, migrant workers would travel in large groups on motorbikes from the Pearl River Delta region, where they work throughout the year, to their hometowns in Guangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan ahead of the Spring Festival.

At its peak, over a million rides were made, so "motorcycle fleets" created a symbolic scene during the Spring Festival travel rush in southern China.

At around 11 in the morning, the Gan couple got off to rest at a service station along a highway that connects Guangxi and Guangdong.

The service station, a vital transfer hub for motorcyclists heading for home, used to be packed with motorcycles. But this year the large parking lot is dotted with only dozens of motorbikes each day during the travel rush.

"It is the peak time of the day," said Zou Dan, a traffic police officer in Guangxi's Wuzhou, who has been providing travel service for motorcycle fleets for more than a decade.

"About 12,000 motorbike trips are expected this year from Guangdong to Guangxi during the new year travel rush, while the number was 250,000 in 2013," Zou added.

Official data indicate that the sharp fall began in 2014 when many high-speed railways connecting Guangxi and Guangdong began operation.

Since then, regions such as Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Guangxi -- with a large population of migrant workers -- have been directly connected with the Pearl River Delta via convenient railway and highway networks.

By the end of 2021, China had more than 40,000 km of high-speed railway in operation, ranking the first in the world.

Besides, a rise in the incomes of these migrant workers has changed their means of travel. As more people shifted to rail traffic, some have even purchased a car to drive home.

Gan and his wife are also contemplating other travel options next year, as the convenient and modern high-speed railway offers a time-efficient choice.

Life is improving for these migrant workers while those motorcycle trips are reminiscences of their hard work and the country's progress.

There are also others who choose to stay home and not return to their factories.

Qin Hongfei, 50, who had worked as a migrant worker since the 1990s, decided to move back to his hometown in 2017. He explained that the development of modern infrastructure in rural areas has encouraged the establishment of careers for migratory workers such as himself.

Qin now runs a star anise plantation farm in Guangxi, and the earnings helped him build a two-storey house in his hometown of Gulong.