Better than its habits suggest, and the car still runs the show. Half of commuters drive. A quarter work from home. Hardly anyone takes the train. The trains run; the town drives.
Aldershot station sits in the middle of town, with North Camp, Ash and Ash Vale stations all close by, and direct trains to London. At the 2021 Census only about 3% of working residents went to work by train. Buses are better served than they are used: 124 bus stops cover the area, but about 4% of commuters take one.
The real commute mix is simpler. About 51% of working residents drive and about 25% work from home, which makes the kitchen table the town's second-largest destination for work. About 9% walk and about 2% cycle. Car ownership follows the same logic: about 20% of households have no car at all, and about 39% have two or more. The households without a car are managing on foot and by bus; the ones with two are the reason the driveway question comes up at every viewing.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics, modelled for the area rather than measured from any particular front door, put the nearest town centre about 9 minutes away by car, 16 by public transport, 12 by bike and 20 on foot. A GP is about 8 minutes by car, 14 by public transport and 15 on foot. A food store is about 6 minutes whether you walk or drive, which removes most excuses for the car on a Saturday. Employment is about 12 minutes by car, 14 by public transport and 5 by bike, against 64 on foot. The hospital is the outlier: about 20 minutes by car, 47 by public transport and 118 on foot. Nobody walks to hospital from Aldershot, and the modelled bus time is the one to treat with most caution, because these public transport figures date from 2019 and services have been cut since.
The current bus timetable is healthier than the usage suggests. Each stop averages about 190 scheduled departures on a weekday and about 11 buses in the peak hour, and 98% of stops have some weekend service. Those are counts of departures, not routes, but a stop with a bus every few minutes at peak is a service, not a bus shelter with a timetable nailed to it.
Broadband is where Aldershot stops apologising. Gigabit-capable broadband reaches about 93% of premises, superfast about 99%, and no premises fall below the universal service minimum. The quarter of residents working from home picked a sensible place to do it.
Mobile coverage from at least one operator reaches 100% of the area, and all operators cover 100% too, so the choice of network is about price, not signal.
The cost of all that driving is noise. About 99% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats it as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source: about 36% of postcodes sit near the 65-decibel mark from trains, with the loudest band at 65. Neither figure says how loud any particular bedroom will be, but a buyer who wants silence should check the road outside before the loft.
Electric vehicle drivers get three public charge points in the area, with eight connectors between them, and all three are rapid. Rapid means charging happens during the supermarket shop, not overnight. Three means it happens after a queue.
Aldershot is better connected than its commuting habits let on, with strong broadband and a busy bus timetable doing more than the rail line, and road noise is the price of a town that still prefers the car.