The reporter learned from the China Railway Corporation today that in the first half of this year, the Railway Corporation resolutely implemented the spirit of General Secretary Jinping's important instructions on railway work, conscientiously implemented the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and continued to promote the structural reform of the transportation supply side. Concentrate on the three major measures of freight incremental action, passenger transport quality improvement plan, and Fuxing brand strategy. The main indicators of national railway passenger and freight transportation have achieved substantial growth year-on-on-year, hand over a brilliant "mid-term" report card of railway transportation operation.
In terms of incremental freight actions, the Railway Corporation took the initiative to serve the battle against pollution, issued the "2018-2020 Incremental Freight Action Plan", and formulated a detailed timetable, road map and supporting measures. In the first half of the year, focusing on the "six lines and six regions", we actively organized freight increments, and the national railway freight volume completed 1.549 billion tons, an increase of 7.5 percent over the same period last year. First, the volume of bulk traffic continues to consolidate and expand. Take medium-and long-term transportation as the starting point to ensure that 247 large-scale direct operation lines are cashed in. Efforts should be made to do a good job in the operation of 10,000-ton trains on Daqin, Tanghu and Wari lines, as well as the organization of Shaanxi and Xinjiang coal transportation to ensure the steady growth of coal transportation volume. In the first half of the year, the national railway coal transportation volume completed 0.822 billion tons, up 11.4 percent year on year. The second is to vigorously develop multimodal transport. The railway department promotes the seamless connection of road and port infrastructure and information management, and promotes the rapid growth of container sea-rail intermodal transport; implements the development strategy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and continues to increase the organization of container trains along the river. In the first half of the year, container traffic increased by 44.5 year-on-year, while commodity cars and cold chain logistics increased by 28.2 and 32.2 respectively. Third, the quality of China-Europe trains continues to improve. Focusing on serving the construction of "Belt and Road Initiative", focusing on the development of international railway logistics and promoting intergovernmental cooperation projects, we will strengthen the organization of China-Europe trains. In the first half of the year, China-Europe trains opened 2497 trains, an increase of 69 percent over the same period last year; among them, the return train was 1014, an increase of 100 percent over the same period last year, accounting for 68 percent of the outbound train, an increase of 16 percentage points over the same period last year. Fourth, reduce social logistics costs. We will implement the spirit and requirements of the central government to reduce taxes and burdens, and support the development of the real economy. From May 1, the VAT rate on rail transport services was reduced from 11 per cent to 10 per cent. The Railway Corporation also lowered the freight rates of major railway goods, which is expected to reduce logistics costs by more than 3 billion yuan for the society throughout the year.
In terms of passenger transport quality improvement plan, the railway company to deepen the structural reform of passenger transport supply side as the main line, further enhance the passenger's sense of travel. From January to June, the national railway sent 1.591 billion passengers, an increase of 7.7 percent over the same period last year, and the progress of passenger delivery was the best in nearly three years. First, the product supply system is constantly optimized. Since the beginning of this year, the railway department has successfully implemented the adjustment of the first and second phases of the train operation diagram in 2018. The two new lines of Jiangzhan and Kunchu University have been opened for operation, and the Nanjing-Wuhan and Liuzhou-Nanning high-speed railways have been operated at a speed of 250 kilometers per hour, which has continued to optimize Passenger train operation structure. Second, the market-oriented mechanism of capacity allocation has been continuously improved. The railway department implements a market-oriented EMU operation plan, and strives to achieve accurate matching of capacity delivery and passenger flow demand, to meet the needs of daily, weekend, small and long holidays, spring and summer transportation and sudden passenger flow, and the transportation performance has repeatedly reached new highs. During the Spring Festival this year, the national railway sent 0.375 billion passengers, with a peak of 12.64 million passengers on the peak day, both reaching a record high in the Spring Festival. Qingming Festival, May Day and Dragon Boat Festival have set a new record for a series of indicators. Among them, on May 1, the EMU sent 8.592 million passengers, setting a record for EMU to send passengers in a single day. Third, the quality of passenger transport services has been steadily improved. Since the beginning of this year, the railway department has continued to pay close attention to the improvement of basic services, and vigorously promoted the "toilet revolution", "unblocked project", intelligent navigation, convenient consignment, Internet ordering, frequent flyer service, self-service real-name verification and other key tasks, and the passenger travel experience has continued to improve. By the end of June, 2.7 million people had officially become frequent flyer members, and the number of Internet meal ordering and specialty booking stations had expanded to 38.
In terms of the Fuxing brand strategy, in the first half of the year, the railway department formulated and implemented the Fuxing brand strategy, continued to promote the development of the Fuxing EMU series of products, and continuously expanded the scope of the Fuxing. The Fuxing train runs on the vast land of the motherland, reaching 23 municipalities, provincial capitals and autonomous regional capitals. Since the Fuxing was put into operation on June 26 last year, by the end of June this year, the Fuxing EMU has been put into operation for one year, sending a total of 42.47 million passengers, with an average load factor of 81%, 7.5 percentage points higher than that of other EMU trains. the highest load factor in a single day is 97.6, and the brand reputation and influence of Fuxing continue to improve.