Couriers display Spring Festival signs while taking free train rides back home from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A high-speed train with deliverymen enjoying free ride to home left Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, as the city's hundreds of thousands of couriers began going back to their hometowns for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

The train, bound for Bozhou city in Anhui province, carried some 400 couriers and their family members, whose hometowns are along the route to East China's Jiangsu and then Anhui province.

Couriers display Spring Festival signs while taking free train rides back home from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Fares for the nearly five-hour trip, priced up to 366 yuan ($53.1), were covered by Cainiao Network Technology, the country's top courier aggregator owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba.

The train aims to take away the hassle of buying train tickets during the peak Spring Festival season for deliverymen, and provide a rewarding travel experience for those who have been shuffling across the city collecting and dispatching parcels all year long, said Zhang Lu, who oversees the free ride program at Cainiao Guoguo, a parcel delivery and checking app.

Couriers display Spring Festival signs while taking free train rides back home from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Zhang Mengtao, a 23-year-old courier with Baishi Express, said he applied for the free ride via the mobile app and received his tickets in just a few days.

Li Yue, with Shanghai-based ST Express, said he finished delivering the order in the Year of the Pig just two hours before boarding the train, and was happy to enjoy the free ride and get refreshed for the new year.

Couriers take free train to home from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The weeklong holiday, which starts on Jan 25 this year, is likely to see just one-tenth of the conventional number of parcels being delivered, said Yu Hongwei, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Postal Administration.

"We've encouraged express delivery firms to make contingency plans and get prepared for a gradual pickup in the number of parcels as the holiday draws to an end," he said.

Couriers take free train to home from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

China's courier sector raked in 745 billion yuan in revenue in 2019, up 23 percent year-on-year, while the volume of parcels surged 24 percent to 63 billion, according to statistics from the State Post Bureau.

Couriers display Spring Festival signs while taking free train rides back home from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Couriers take free train to home from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Jan 16, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]