The Ministry of Public Security has urged local traffic police units to adopt measures to deal with the issues of traffic safety during the forthcoming New Year and Spring Festival period.

The ministry has sent 31 special teams to inspect traffic safety posts, bus companies and schools, a ministry spokesman said Thursday.

Problems the police inspectors discovered included disorders in rural road networks, bus company irregularities, poor condition of some buses, lack of road safety facilities in areas around schools, and a lack of road safety publicity material in some bus stations.

Official figures indicate that in the coming festive period, 1.855 billion passengers will travel by road, an increase of 3 percent on the same period last year.

Meanwhile, 28 million people are expected to travel on the country's major waterways in the same period, up 1.5 percent on last year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2005)