BEIJING, March 1 (Xinhua) -- China's 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, which concluded Friday, witnessed 2.98 billion passenger trips, according to official data.

The traffic was basically the same as last year, according to the Ministry of Transport.

A total of 410 million trips were made by rail, a rise of 7.4 percent year on year; 2.46 billion by road, a drop of 0.8 percent; 73 million by air, an increase of 12 percent; and 41 million by water, which was the same as last year's volume.

The annual travel rush around the festival, when people travel to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year with their families, puts the transport system to the test.

To cope with surging traffic, China's railway, road and air network took a series of measures to improve their services, including putting more vehicles into service.

New service forms such as car pools and paperless rail ticket systems helped ease the traffic burden during this year's travel rush.