Newcastle United tops survey of matchday travel among football fans

Researchers surveyed fans and supporters' clubs, and assessed travel information and travel planning provided by clubs.The report, Door to Turnstile, reveals that while fans often want to leave their cars at home they are prevented from doing so by poor public transport provision. Instead they are regularly "condemned to a weekly pattern of expensive parking and endless traffic jams."Xinjiang travel agency The government is urged to take the lead by setting up free public transport with match tickets – along the lines of the popular and well-used KombiTicket in Germany – and individual clubs should routinely publish travel plans that include proposals for new facilities to improve access by walking and cycling as well as clear information about getting to the ground without a car. Transport operators should investigate a national football supporters' railcard with more flexible conditions, the report recommends.Manchester United's Old Trafford ground comes 18th in the survey of 20 Premier League clubs and is described as "a major ground served mainly by low-capacity public transport, travel planning nearly a decade out of date and without safe walking or cycling routes." Bottom of the pile is Reading's Madejski stadium: "comfortably the least accessible ground in this year's Premier League – out of town and virtually unreachable by regular public transport." Xinjiang China Tours And languishing at 19th is Queen's Park Rangers' ground, Loftus Road, where "despite London's extensive public transport, QPR have no coherent travel plan and offer poor information on how to get to Loftus RoadFans of Arsenal, in second place in the survey, make full use of good public transport links at the club's Emirates stadium, where the percentage of fans arriving by car has been reduced from 30% to 10% since moving from their old ground. And in third place, improvements to Fulham's Craven Cottage have led to a high proportion of supporters combining public transport with walking to the ground.Other key findings from the fans' survey include: 23% of fans spend more on travel than they do on a match ticket; fans travelling by train spend the most followed by lone drivers (most fans share lifts to games), with those travelling by bus spending the least; the average fan spends 55 on a match day with 13 going on travel, while train travellers spend 74, with 26 of this spent getting to the game.