BEIJING, Feb. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- China's rails, roads, boats and airlines are receiving a surge of passengers, as people return to work from the Spring Festival holidays in their hometown and vacation trips.

The Ministry of Communications has required all the relevant departments to provide sound service and guarantee safe operation in the rainy and snowy days.

A total of 360,000 people flew Monday, booking out more than 70 percent of seats on flights to nearly 50 cities, said sources from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC).

Officials with the Ministry of Communications estimated that there would be 40 million bus passengers on Monday, a sharp rise from the previous days.

The Anhui province saw increase of 47 percent from Sunday, and other provinces would see passenger growth from 5 to 10 percent.

Anhui is the home of many of China's migrant workers, many of whom are returning to work earlier than last year.

The railway authorities in Anhui province reported that 37,000 passengers left the region in the past two days. Coach Station in Hefei, Anhui's capital, saw 12,000 people leave the city Monday and 60 percent of them were migrant workers.

The Shanghai Railway Station also reported more passengers traveling to and from to the metropolis. A total of 540,000 peopleleft Shanghai and 550,000 arrived by train during the past five days, up 12 percent from last Spring Festival.

In Wuhan, capital city and transport hub of central China's Hubei province, 60,000 people left by train. The city's train station also sold the record high 60,000 tickets on Monday.

The station's official Da Wensheng predicted that the high passenger flow would continue in the following days and station had already added more temporary trains and strengthened safety measures.

Like the station, the transport facilities across the nation were gearing up for the Spring Festival transport peak, a 40-day season that began on Jan. 25.

The country's transport departments estimated the total number of passengers for journeys should be 1.97 billion this year, a 3.4percent increase from last year.

Spring Festival, or China's Lunar New Year, fell on February 9 this year. The holiday is an important occasion for Chinese families, similar to Christmas in the western world.

For years, the transport facilities have been strained during the season as millions of migrant workers, college students and other Chinese flock back home and then return two weeks later.