Arundel is connected the way a small market town on a working railway line is connected, which is to say adequately for some, unworkably for others. Arundel Rail Station puts direct trains on the Arun Valley Line to London Victoria, Brighton and Chichester. About one in fifty residents actually commutes by train. Twenty-six bus stops sit inside the town's bounding box. Roughly a third of properties can get a gigabit connection. The pieces are there; the frequencies are what they are.
Public transport starts with the station. Arundel Rail Station sits on the Arun Valley Line and connects the town to Amberley to the north, Ford, Barnham, Angmering and Littlehampton to the south and east, and the wider south-coast network beyond. Direct trains reach London, Brighton and Chichester on the timetable that the line has always run. The commuter share tells you how many people actually use it: only about one in fifty residents commutes to work by train. That is not because the trains are bad; it is because the town has a lot of retirees, a lot of self-employed professionals, and a big share working from home rather than travelling. If you are moving here to catch a train five days a week to central London, you can, but you will be doing it with a lot of empty seats around you.
Buses are the thinner part of the picture. Twenty-six bus stops sit inside the town's bounding box, which sounds like a lot until you look at what runs from them. The bus-commute share is under one per cent of residents, which is a rounding error rather than a mode of travel. The buses that do run connect Arundel to the neighbouring towns and villages, and they are useful for people who do not drive, but they are not the network a city buyer is used to. Anyone moving here without a car and expecting to get anywhere spontaneously will need to plan.
Broadband is where the small town punches above its size. Roughly a third of properties can get a gigabit connection, close to a third can get ultrafast, and nearly every property can get superfast. Hardly anyone falls below the universal service floor. For a town of this scale, in this part of the country, that is a working digital picture, and it is the reason the work-from-home share sits as high as it does. About four in ten residents work mainly from home, which is more than commute by car and vastly more than commute by any other mode.
What this means in practice is straightforward. Drive to work and you are on the local road network, which congests around the town at the wrong times of day and works fine at the right ones. Take the train and you have a real option, if the destination is on the line. Take the bus and you are making a lifestyle choice, not a commute. Work from home and you have the connection you need. Cycle and you have a mixed picture, with about one in a hundred residents commuting that way, which tells you what the local infrastructure supports and does not support.
None of that adds up to a well-connected town by the standard a London leaver or a Brighton commuter is used to. It adds up to a workable town for people whose lives already fit its shape, and a frustrating one for people whose lives do not.
The verdict on connectivity is 2 out of 5. The train is real, the buses are thin, the broadband is fine, and everything else depends on the car. If your working life needs frequency, this is not it. If it needs a station, a signal and a study, it is.