Readiness of Sydney transport system assessed for Olympics

TOKYO (Reuters) -- The Sydney Olympics minister said on Wednesday he felt the city's transport system could cope with a crush of passengers during the games, but added he was not completely sure.

"We think that we have the best chance of any of the recent Olympic Games of getting the transport right, but we are not complacent about that," Michael Knight, president of the Sydney Games organizing committee, told a news conference in Tokyo.

Transportation snarls were one of the biggest headaches at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and concerns have risen about whether Sydney, without a subway or a network of ring roads, will be able to cope with an influx of around 750,000 visitors for the September Games.

In a worrying reminder of the potential for trouble, two separate incidents on Sydney trains on Tuesday night -- a fire and a derailment, left 14 injured.

Noting that dealing with transportation during an Olympics was a huge challenge due to the vast number of people involved, and the fact that systems will be operating for 24 hours, Knight said that Sydney felt prepared.

One reason for confidence was that the city's transport system had been put through its paces by a number of test sporting events, he said.

"Having said that, nobody can guarantee that during the Olympic period there won't be a derailment, that there won't be a breakdown, that there won't be a repeat of unfortunate incidents like last night's," he said.

Knight was in Tokyo as part of an international tour to explain the Games to overseas media. He next heads to Beijing.

Asked his feelings about the size of the Olympics, Knight he felt the Games had reached their maximum practical size and could not grow any larger.

More than 10,000 athletes will take part in the Games, slightly below the number in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, despite the fact that the number of events has increased.

"The difficulty is that there is constant pressure from new sports wanting to be added, and not all the existing sports, for obvious reasons, are keen to be deleted," Knight said.

"I think the total has pretty much reached the limit at which you can deliver a quality Games," he added.

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