China railway passenger traffic hit a new high in 2025

China railway passenger traffic continued to climb in 2025: from January to November, CR carried 4.28 billion passengers, up 6.6% year on year.

The network also averaged 11,258 passenger trains per day; these figures were cited in a Xinhua report.

China railway passenger traffic and cross-border travel

The statistics also highlight cross-border journeys. Over the first 11 months of 2025, cross-border passenger traffic on the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong high-speed railway reached 28.94 million people. On the China–Laos railway, 244,000 people were carried over the same period.

This is reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply.

CR investment and HSR project development

Investment in fixed assets kept rising as well. From January to November 2025, it reached 753.8 billion yuan (about US$106.5 billion), which is 5.9% higher than in 2024. Infrastructure upgrades and the progress of trial runs on several HSR lines in 2025 were also mentioned in a separate Xinhua item.

Don’t miss…TTC transit worker protections in focus on awareness day

New lines and trials ahead of commercial services

On 28 November 2025, the Panzhou–Xingyi high-speed railway opened to train operations. Trial runs are also under way on the Xi’an–Yan’an, Guangzhou–Zhanjiang and Hangzhou–Quzhou high-speed lines, with commercial passenger services due to start by the end of 2025. Railway Supply also covered trial activity on the Guangzhou–Zhanjiang route in a recent Railway Supply report.

News on railway transport, industry, and railway technologies from Railway Supply that you might have missed: