By Ray Booth, Stadium Manager
Following the problems encountered by matchday bus services before Wednesday night's game with Chelsea, the Club has met with Reading Buses to discuss the situation.
In trying to understand the cause of the problems, we have studied the events of the evening in comparison with the FA Cup replay against Manchester United in January, when a sell-out crowd with a large travelling contingent was comfortably admitted into the stadium in time for kick off and all bus services ran smoothly.
To provide some background to the evening's events: at around 5pm a heavy build-up of traffic started to develop in all routes out of the town centre. This was greatly exacerbated by the extremely poor weather conditions, which always leads to a significant increase in road traffic.
The unusually high build-up of traffic continued to intensify from 5pm as the weather continued to deteriorate, meaning that a number of buses were delayed. Some buses were unable to reach the start of their routes due to the congestion, while others lost time along the way.
All buses were in service with a full compliment of buses on all routes, but many experienced delays for the reasons stated above - primarily the inclement weather conditions which caused an unusually high volume of road traffic.
The Henley service was an exception because the bus suffered a broken window en route to the start point, and a replacement bus could not be arranged at short notice. As compensation to passengers, this service will be running free of charge for Saturday's game with Everton.
We will continue to work with all relevant authorities to prevent a repeat of similar problems in the future, and encourage supporters to leave as much time as possible for their journeys.
