Cheltenham is well connected by cable and by car, and much less by train. Nearly every home can get gigabit broadband. Almost as many people work from home as drive to work. Hardly anyone takes the train. Here the commute often goes through a router.
Cheltenham Spa Rail Station is on the Bristol to Birmingham main line, and at the 2021 Census fewer than 1% of working residents took a train to work. Buses carry about 3%, from 738 stops spread across the area. The Cheltenham Flyer, which once ran from here to London, was for a time the fastest scheduled passenger train in the world, and the town's commuters have found other ways to get to work since.
At the same Census, about 39% drove to work and 37% worked from home, with walking at about 12% and cycling at about 4%. A fifth of households have no car, and about 35% have two or more. That is a town split between people who drive to work and people who no longer commute at all, with a reasonable number walking.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey-time statistics give the trip to the nearest town centre as about 10 minutes by car, 18 by public transport, 14 by bike and 28 on foot. Those are averages across the area, and a house off the Promenade does a lot better than one on the edge of Up Hatherley.
The same statistics put a GP about 9 minutes away by car, 14 by public transport and 17 on foot. A hospital is about 12 minutes by car and 25 by public transport, a food shop about 7 minutes whether you walk or drive, and the nearest work about 14 minutes by car and 11 by public transport. All of these are modelled averages for the whole area. The car and walking times will have held up, but the public transport times date from 2019 and will have suffered as services have been cut since. A food shop seven minutes' walk away is the best figure in the set.
The buses in service today look healthier than the modelled times. Stops with timetable data average about 50 scheduled departures each on a weekday and about 3 in the peak hour, and about 92% of them have some service at weekends. That is a real bus network in daily use, and it is more than the 3% who bus to work would suggest.
Broadband is the town's strongest connection. Gigabit-capable broadband reaches about 92% of premises, ultrafast about 93%, and superfast reaches every one. Mobile coverage is complete too, with every postcode reached by every network. The 37% working from home could do it because the cable was already in place.
Road noise is everywhere. About 100% of Cheltenham's postcodes are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source, with about 17% of postcodes near or above the same threshold, presumably those close to the main line. The government's strategic noise maps show both for a specific street, and it is worth looking up any house within earshot of the railway.
Electric car owners have 24 public charge points in the area, with 53 connectors between them, 8 of them rapid. With only 8 rapid units, charging is something to plan around, and an off-street space with a home charger matters more than any of the public ones.
Cheltenham is better connected than most, as long as the connection you need is broadband, a bus or a car. The railway carries almost none of the town's commuters.