Caterham has better broadband than train service. Its railway goes to one London terminus and nowhere else. More people work from home than drive to work. The buses turn up often. Most residents now commute from home.
Caterham Rail Station is where the line from Purley ends, and its trains go only to London Bridge. Whyteleafe, Whyteleafe South, Kenley and Upper Warlingham stations are nearby on the same corridor. Only about 5% of working residents commute by train and about 2% by bus. There are 82 bus stops in the area. Having a station on the doorstep matters less than it did to the Victorians who built the line.
About 42% of working residents work from home and about 40% drive. About 6% walk, and cycling barely registers. About 15% of households have no car and about 43% have two or more. Most households are either working from home or driving, with public transport a distant third.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics are modelled for the whole area, not measured from any one front door. They put the nearest town centre about 9 minutes away by car, 13 by bike, 17 by public transport and about 25 on foot. A 25-minute walk is fine on a dry day, and harder on the way back up the hill with shopping.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 84% of premises and superfast about 98%. For a town where working from home is the most common way to work, that matters more than the timetable.
Every postcode gets 4G or 5G signal from at least one operator, and about 100% get it from all of them.
The area has two public charging points with four connectors between them. One of those connectors is rapid. That means charging mostly happens on a driveway overnight, and anyone without a driveway needs a plan.
For a typical working week, the town works well for people at home three or four days and on the train to London Bridge for the rest. It works less well for anyone who commutes somewhere the line doesn't go, which means driving, because the alternatives quickly get harder.
The same Department for Transport statistics put a GP surgery about 8 minutes away by car, 13 by public transport and 15 on foot. A hospital is about 27 minutes by car and 56 by public transport. A food shop is about 7 minutes by car or 13 on foot, and the nearest large employment centre about 12 minutes by car or 24 by public transport. The public transport times date from 2019, and some services may have been cut since, so they're less reliable than the car and walking times. The hospital figure stands out: the model puts it at close to two hours on foot.
Bus stops in the area average about 173 scheduled departures on a weekday, with about nine an hour at peak times, and about 88% of stops have some weekend service. Those numbers describe a real service, not a bus that turns up twice a day.
Road noise is widespread. About 100% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate measure and barely registers. Postcode mapping can't say how loud a particular bedroom will be, so visit at rush hour and find out.
Caterham is better connected than average, with excellent broadband and a frequent bus service. Its weak point is the railway: if London Bridge isn't where you need to go, it won't get you to work.