Nearly 16,000 drivers and service personnel will keep more than
10,000 official Olympics vehicles running smoothly, a
transportation official with the city's Olympics organizing
committee said.
This is not to mention cars of VIPs from around the world and
the number of operations and technical support vehicles that will
be used during the Games, Zhang Xiaodong, director of the
committee's transportation department, told a session yesterday of
the 14th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in
the nation's capital.
Nearly half of the 10,000 vehicles, all equipped with wireless
communication devices, will exclusively serve Games events, while
2,200 shuttles and sponsors' buses, as well as almost 2,000 rental
vehicles, will be available for the Olympic community at large, he
said.
Zhang said transport services for the Summer Games and
Paralympics, expected to operate July 20 until September 20 next
year, would cover all of Beijing's 31 competition venues, more than
40 independent training venues, seven of the 17 non-competition
venues, six designated parking depots, 26 International Federation
(IF) hotels, and nearly 80 contracted hotels for the Olympic
community and media.
"An integrated traffic control center with a transport operation
center, seven sub-centers, and car teams set up by the Olympics
transit stops and venues is to be formed," he said.
A similar three-layered, real-time command-and-control system
will be adopted to monitor all Olympic venues, lanes and locations
on a 24/7 basis, to ensure a safe, secure and reliable transport
infrastructure during the Games.
Considerable challenges, however, remain. Nearly 5,000 members
of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) and VIPs, over 12,000
athletes and team officials, 3,000 technical officials, more than
21,600 accredited media professionals, nearly 400,000 sponsors and
guests, and over 100,000 staff are expected to attend the Games,
placing immense pressure on Beijing's already-stretched
transportation network.
According to Liu Xiaoming, deputy director-general of the city's
Committee of Communication, there will be 7.5 million spectators
for the Summer Games and another 2.5 million during the
Paralympics.
Beijing has initiated a series of drastic moves to encourage
transit usage.
The mandatory and voluntary measures implemented proved
successful during the six-day China-Africa Summit last November,
which removed about a third of the city's cars from the roads, and
in the four-day traffic restriction period this August.
Most recently, its participation in the first-ever national
"Car-Free Day" last month and the opening of a new subway line in
addition to a concurrent price reduction on all subway fares was
also met with positive public response.
(China Daily October 12, 2007)