China's passenger traffic grew steadily in the first nine months of this year with a slight increase in freight traffic volume, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The ridership between January and September reached 10.40 billion, 7.95 percent more than the figure for the same 1998 period.

The highway sector registered 9.47 billion ridership during the period, a year-on-year rise of 8.5 percent. A total of 740 million people traveled by train in the nine months, up 4.81 percent, and 45 million people traveled by air during the period, up 5.40 percent on an annual basis.

However, the waterway sector reported a year-on-year decline of 7.9 percent in ridership. Only 146 million people traveled by ship during the period.

Meanwhile, total freight traffic in the January-September period reached 9.08 billion tons, up 1.44 percent.

The highway sector saw an increase of 0.70 percent to register 7.06 billion tons, the railway sector carried 1.17 billion tons of cargo, up 3.56 percent, and the freight traffic in the civil aviation sector surged 21.20 percent to 1.22 million tons. In the meantime, the waterway sector handled 853 million tons of cargo, up 4.80 percent on an annual basis.