Well by road and broadband, less well by anything with a timetable. Nearly half of working residents drive to work. A third work from home. Hardly anyone takes the train. Nine in ten premises can get gigabit broadband. Alton reaches the world through its router and its car keys, and the router is the more reliable of the two.
Alton Rail Station has trains to London Waterloo, and about 1% of working residents use them to commute. There are 77 bus stops across the town, and about 1% of working residents use the bus to get to work. On paper, the public transport is all there. Very few people's working week involves it.
The commute runs mostly on the car and the spare room. About 48% of working residents drive, about 33% work from home, about 11% walk and about 1% cycle. About 44% of households have two cars or more, and only about 15% have none. Car ownership here isn't a lifestyle statement. The average household just treats a second car the way flat-dwellers treat a second phone charger.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics, modelled in 2019 for the area rather than from any particular front door, put the nearest town centre about 10 minutes away by car, 13 by bike, 16 by public transport and 25 on foot. A 25-minute walk to the centre is the figure that explains all those second cars.
The same statistics cover the everyday destinations. A GP surgery is about 9 minutes by car, 14 by public transport or 18 on foot. A food store is about 7 minutes by car and 11 on foot. The nearest large employment centre is about 17 minutes by car and 28 by public transport, and on foot the model gives up at its two-hour cap. The nearest hospital is the real distance: about 33 minutes by car and 75 by public transport. The public transport figures are from 2019 and services have been cut in many places since, so treat them with more caution than the car and walk times, which depend on the roads and the distances rather than a timetable.
Bus stops are not the same as buses, but here the service mostly shows up. At the 62 stops with timetable data, the average is about 100 scheduled departures each weekday and about 7 in the peak hour, and about 65% of those stops have any weekend service. The other third of stops are weekday-only, which is fine until Saturday comes and you remember you don't drive.
Broadband is the strongest connection the town has. Gigabit-capable broadband reaches about 89% of premises, ultrafast about 91% and superfast about 99%. Nobody falls below the universal minimum speed. That is how a third of the working town gets to work.
Mobile coverage is complete. Every postcode gets 4G or 5G from at least one operator, and about 99% from all of them. Your network choice is a matter of price, not of which room gets a signal.
Road noise is the price of a town that drives. About 99% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band present is 75 decibels and over. That doesn't tell you how loud any particular house will sound, and a viewing at rush hour will tell you more than a map. Rail noise doesn't register as a separate problem.
Electric car charging lags well behind the broadband. The area has 2 public charge points with 5 connectors between them, and only 1 of those is rapid. With one rapid unit, charging is something you plan around, not something you do while picking up the shopping. Most owners will want a driveway and a wallbox.
Alton is middling for connections: first-rate online, fine behind the wheel, and thin on everything with a timetable.