Unlike the five rings of the Olympic insignia, the five Ring Roads of Beijing are associated with slowness and congestion rather than record-breaking feats of endurance.

Beijing will establish a command center to deal with various traffic issues during the Games,coordinating different departments to work for a better transport system and ensure the smooth and timely sharing of information among different groups of people.

But moves are under way to correct this, with a new phase of municipal planning targeting the city's public transit system.

The staging of the Beijing Olympic Games next year has catapulted the plan to the top of the government's agenda. Under it, anybody living inside the Third Ring Road will be within a 1-kilometer-walk of a subway station. That station will be part of a broader network racing to all corners of the city.

Before the Olympic Games begins, three new subway lines will be built to complement the four routes already in operation. By 2015, Beijing will have 19 subway and rail lines and a downtown network that stretches across 406 kilometers.

When in place, the rail network will account for 49 percent of the city's public transport system, up from 15 percent. It will be able to carry nearly 9 million commuters (twice the population of Sydney) a day compared to 1.86 million at present.

Beijing's bus system will also be expanded and renovated before and after the Olympic Games.

By 2010, Beijing will have 19,000-21,000 buses, at least 63 percent of which will be air-conditioned. To encourage more people to use them, the government is planning to provide 1.3 billion yuan ($168 million) on subsidizing fares.

According to the plan, 110 overlapping bus routes within the Third Ring Road will be scrapped, and the 1,500 buses currently plying those routes will be relocated to connect to over 300 communities on the outskirts of Beijing.

Every community that has a population of more than 7,000 should have access to at least one bus route.

The city's 593 bus lines currently carry 3.78 million people a day. The city is also planning to build a series of transportation hubs so people will not have to walk long distances to change buses.

Low-fee parking lots will be constructed around the Third Ring Road to encourage people who drive cars to switch to using buses to make their way downtown.

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