BEIJING -- Chinese people are expected to make more than 1.7 billion journeys around their country during the upcoming lunarnew year, the world's biggest annual human migration, state media said Tuesday.

The figure is 100 million, or 3.3 percent, more than last year, the Xinhua news agency said.

The travel boom, mainly people going home to see family and friends, is likely to stretch the country's transportation network to its absolute limits.

China's move towards a more market-oriented economy and an easing of residential restrictions has resulted in more than 100 million migrant workers, mostly from the countryside, working in often distant cities.

Students returning home also make up a big portion of the travellers, while many others use the week-long Chinese new year or "spring festival" national holiday, beginning on February 12, to travel for fun.

In the 40-day period around the holiday, 1.58 billion trips will be made by bus, 130 million by train and 7.25 million by plane, according to official estimates reported by Xinhua.

Train travel is the biggest potential concern for the government. During previous holiday periods, pandemonium has broken out at railway stations with hoards of travellers clawing their way onto packed trains, with many others unable to get aboard.

As well as continuing an increase in the number of trains, this year the government has raised ticket prices on popular routes between 15 and 35 percent during the peak period to discourage people from travelling then.

Despite this, the number of railway passengers is expected to increase by two percent from 2001, with 4.1 million people expected to take trains every day during the main February 18 to 20 period, xinhua said.

Official estimates indicate a majority of migrant workers -- about 70 million -- will travel home during the peak holiday time.

Many of them have left their children in the countryside to be cared for by grandparents because they work long hours in the cities and city schools charge migrant workers' children higher tuition fees than for their city counterparts.

"Each year during spring festival, my wife and I have to go home to see our parents and child," Yang Jianping, a migrant worker from the central province of Hunan, working in south China's Guangdong Province, told Xinhua.