The annual Spring Festival travel rush, or chunyun in Chinese, started on Thursday. In the following 40 days, the world's largest annual human migration will again hit the road, lasting from Feb 1 to March 12.

Some new changes, such as the expansion of high-speed railway network and technological development, will smooth travel this year, chinanews.com reported on Thursday.

Change No 1: Decline in number of road trips

A total of 2.98 billion trips will be made during the Spring Festival travel rush, about the same as that of last year, Lian Weiliang, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a news conference on Jan 31.

The number of train trips is expected to exceed 390 million, up 8.8 percent year-on-year, and air trips are likely to top 65 million trips, up 10 percent from last year. However, the number of road trips will drop 1.6 percent to 2.48 billion, marking the first decline in road trips, according to Lian.

As the Spring Festival, on Feb 16, arrives late this year, the climax of daily trips would appear after the Spring Festival, with trips projected to top 100 million, Lian said.