High-speed trains with comfort, Starbucks coffee onboard, free Wi-Fi in stations, and phone apps for ticket purchase. As the Spring Festival travel rush kicked off on Sunday, hundreds of millions of Chinese found that their journeys for holiday homecomings have become much smoother and faster.

This year's Spring Festival travel rush, or chunyun, reflect show China's economic boom, huge investment in infrastructure and fast growth of information technologies have redefined the once grueling experience of going home for the Chinese New Year, which falls on February 8 this year.

At Shanghai Railway Station, the ticket office is no longer crowded. In previous years' travel rush, the ticket office was crammed every night with tens of thousands of people who had to line up all night to buy a ticket.