BEIJING, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Ride sharing proved popular during the Spring Festival travel rush as more Chinese shared their empty car seats to reduce costs and pollution.

About 8.5 million people used the "hitch a lift" option (Didi-H) on ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing during the 40-day "Chunyun" travel period, which ended Tuesday. This is a surge of more than 340 percent compared with last year, the company announced Wednesday.

The Didi-H function allows private car owners to share vacant seats with those on similar routes, which attracted over three million drivers across the country to try the service.

Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Beijing and Hangzhou were the top five cities for the service.

Didi started the service in early 2016 for the Spring Festival. It hopes that in ten years around half of China's private car owners will share their empty seats.