Berkhamsted is well connected, mainly to London, and most of its working residents didn't use that link at all when the census counted them. There are direct trains to Euston. More than half worked from home. Driving still beat the train by a distance. The broadband is good enough to make the station optional.
Berkhamsted station is beside the castle, overlooking the canal, on the main line into London Euston, and Tring and Hemel Hempstead stations are within reach. Even so, Census 2021 found only about 3% of working residents commuting by train and under 1% by bus, across the town's 90 bus stops. The census was taken during the pandemic, so the rail figure is a low snapshot from an unusual year. The trains are there. The 2021 commuters mostly weren't.
The same census found about 55% of working residents working from home, 30% driving, about 8% walking and about 1% cycling. Car ownership matches the town's comfort, with about 13% of households owning no car and about 43% owning two or more. The car is the main way to get around here, and the train is for special occasions and London meetings.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey-time statistics, from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 10 minutes away by car, 13 by public transport, 10 by bike and 16 on foot. The same figures give a GP about 7 minutes by car, 10 on foot and 10 by public transport, a food shop about 9 minutes' walk or 7 minutes' drive, and employment about 7 minutes by car or 18 by public transport. A hospital is the exception, at about 19 minutes by car and 36 by public transport. Those are modelled averages for the area. The car and walking times hold up, because distance doesn't change. The public transport times date from before services were cut and are the least reliable of the set. Day to day, almost everything is a short drive or a walk, and getting ill is the one errand that needs a plan.
The town's stops average about 15 scheduled weekday departures each, around one an hour at peak, and about 92% of stops have some weekend service. That is a real timetable, if not one anybody hurries for. Like the bypass, which was proposed in the 1930s and opened in 1993, Berkhamsted's transport tends to arrive eventually.
Superfast broadband reaches about 99% of premises and gigabit about 62%. For a town where home working is the main commute, that gigabit gap is the connectivity figure that matters most day to day. Mobile coverage is close to complete, with almost every postcode reached by at least one network and nearly all of them by every network.
Noise is the cost of all this connection. More than 99% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official mapping treats traffic as significant, and the loudest band present reaches 75 decibels. Rail is a separate source, and about 79% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels from trains, again peaking at 75. The line that makes Berkhamsted commutable is also the one most of the town can hear. Those are mapped levels, and they can't say how loud any one bedroom will be with the window shut. Standing outside a valley-floor house during the morning rush is worth doing before making an offer.
Electric vehicle charging is thin. The town has 3 public charge points with 6 connectors between them, and only 1 rapid unit. Most drivers will charge at home, because charging in town is something to book ahead.
Berkhamsted is better connected than most market towns, mostly because of the London line and good broadband, while buses, gigabit coverage and public chargers all trail behind. It works best for people who drive locally, catch the train for London and work from home the rest of the week.