Buckingham is reasonably well connected by car and by broadband, and badly by rail, because the town has no station at all. Almost nobody commutes by train. Nearly half drive. More than a third work from home. Fast broadband reaches almost every home, and it gets more use than the buses do.
The town lost its rail link a long time ago. Buckingham railway station closed to passengers in 1964, the same year the town's arm of the Grand Junction Canal was finally abandoned. Finmere station, out in the countryside, opened as "Finmere for Buckingham", dropped the town from its name in the early 1920s and closed in 1963. At the 2021 census, about 1% of working residents commuted by train and about 1% by bus. There are 51 bus stops in the area.
Most people drive, and plenty don't commute at all. At the 2021 census, about 47% of working residents drove to work, about 37% worked from home and about 9% walked. Cycling was about 1%. About 13% of households have no car, and about 48% have two or more.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics model the average trip across the area, and they date from 2019. Distances to a fixed destination stay the same, but bus services have been cut since then, so the public transport times are the least reliable figures here. On those numbers, the town centre is about 8 minutes away by car, 10 by bike, 12 by public transport and 14 on foot. A GP is about 8 minutes by car, 11 by public transport and 15 on foot. A food shop is about 7 minutes by car or 10 on foot. The nearest large employment centre is about 14 minutes by car and 23 by public transport. A hospital is about 29 minutes by car and about 73 by public transport. That hospital trip is the one to think about: the car turns a long journey into a manageable one.
Bus stops are only part of the story. The figures below are current timetables, unlike the 2019 journey times. Across the 33 stops with timetable data, the average is about 28 scheduled departures each on a weekday, and roughly one an hour at peak. About 88% of those stops have some weekend service. One bus an hour at rush hour is enough to get a teenager to town. It is not enough to get anyone to work on time.
Broadband is the strong part. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 91% of premises, superfast covers all of them, and no property falls below the government's minimum broadband standard. Mobile coverage is almost complete too: every postcode gets at least one network's 4G or 5G, and about 98% get all of them.
Road noise is a factor. More than 99% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant, and the loudest band recorded is 75 decibels and above. Three main roads cross the town, and the bypass to the south carries the through traffic. There is no rail noise to add to it. Look at the government's strategic noise map for the exact house, because a garden backing onto the bypass and a house in a cul-de-sac off the market square fall in very different bands.
The area has 8 public charging sites with 15 connectors between them, and 2 of those connectors are rapid. With only 2 rapid connectors, owners mostly charge at home overnight.
For a typical household, the commute is a car journey or no journey at all. Buckingham's connections are middling. The broadband and the roads are good, and the rail line closed in the 1960s, so anyone who needs a daily train will have to drive to one.