Panel criticises London Olympics transport plan

By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - Plans for transport links to the 2012 London Olympics are vague and the agency in charge has shown no urgency in drawing up a more detailed blueprint, a parliamentary committee said on Tuesday.

The criticism from Parliament's Transport Committee follows pressure on London Games organisers to clarify the budget for staging the event and concern over spiralling costs.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), set up to oversee the building of new venues and infrastructure for the London Olympics, published a draft transport plan last October and expects to produce a final plan this summer, the committee said.

"We are concerned to see that the plans for delivery (of most forms of transport) remain vague, and the ODA is not exhibiting any sense of urgency about producing more detailed plans," it said in a report.

Contingency plans for major systems failures during the Games -- such as power failures, security alerts or signalling problems -- were little developed.

Transport plans for the London Olympics depend heavily on rail, with 80 percent of spectators and workers expected to travel by train, it said.

"It is crucial that the transport systems put into place are robust enough to allow for major failures in parts of the system without the entire system collapsing," the report said.

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