About 2.89 billion passenger trips are expected to occur over roads and waterways during next year's Spring Festival travel rush, an official with the Ministry of Transport said Thursday.

Road passenger trips will rise about 9.5 percent year-on-year to 2.85 billion, while waterway trips will hit 43.5 million, up 3 percent from a year earlier, Zhu Jialin, deputy head of the ministry's department of policies and laws, told a Thursday meeting.

Passenger trips made via road and water routes will account for 92 percent of the country's total during the upcoming festival travel season, which starts on January 8 and ends February 16, 2012, Zhu said.

Previous data shows that there were 1.66 billion passenger journeys made during the Spring Festival travel period in 2001, 1.9 billion in 2005 and 2.6 billion in 2011.

Passenger transportation will be much more concentrated during the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on January 23 next year, just a few days after the country's college students begin their winter vacations, Zhu said.

About 840,000 passenger cars and 13,000 vessels will be put into service during the holiday travel rush, Zhu added.

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2011)