BEIJING, Feb. 6 -- Fresh measures to cope with the Spring Festival travel rush this year show the government's effort bring about a more equal society.

The 40-day travel frenzy, also known as "Chunyun", began on Wednesday as people head home to reunite with family during the lunar new year. This year, 2.8 billion trips are expected nationwide, 3.4 percent higher than last year.

The country's railway will handle 300 million of these trips, an increase of 10 percent from last year.

With rail being the primary means of transportation for most of the nation's 200 million migrant workers, the government's efforts to ease pressure on the railway during the holiday travel rush will leave many of the country's workers pleasantly surprised during their annual sojourn.

The first thing they'll notice are fewer queues at ticket vendors, despite the increase in the number of trips. In previous years, people waited hours, in some cases days, to make a purchase during the Spring Festival period.

This year, the official rail ticketing website opened "Chunyun" sales 60 days ahead of the festival, compared with 20 day advance ticketing period in previous years. It's made online booking the main source of sales and encouraged passengers to plan early to avoid rush hour trips.

The second surprise will be thousands of kilometers of new high-speed rail lines. With more high-speed railways in operation, migrant workers, especially those whose homes are in far-flung areas, will find their journey much shorter than previous years.

Last year, a total 5,000 km of new high-speed railway lines were launched, expanding the access of bullet trains to remote western provinces or regions such as Xinjiang, Gansu and Guizhou.

Before that, high-speed rail was concentrated in better developed eastern and central provinces.

Lastly, when migrant workers finally get a train ticket and arrive at the train stations, they will be surprised to find volunteers ready to assist them.

At least 26,000 volunteers are working in more than 300 key railway stations in the nation, offering help to groups including migrant workers, the senior citizens and the disabled people.

Emergency medical assistance, emergency phones calls and guidance are among their services.

Though for many, Chunyun is still a bittersweet journey, at least these improvements have helped make the trips made by those who can not afford airplane tickets or private car trips, fairer and more comfortable.