Epsom is better connected than most of Surrey, though fewer residents use those connections than the timetable suggests. There are trains to London from several stations in and around the town. Almost every home can get gigabit broadband. Nearly half the workforce had stopped commuting altogether. The trains run regularly, and a lot of people don't need them.
Epsom Rail Station is just north of the town centre, with direct trains into London through Sutton and Wimbledon and services south towards Dorking and Guildford. Epsom Downs, Ewell West, Ewell East, Stoneleigh and Tattenham Corner stations serve the edges of town. Even so, only about 6% of working residents took the train to work at the 2021 census. A regular coach service from London started in 1684, and the town has been making London trips easy for people ever since.
Of the town's working residents, about 47% mostly worked from home, about 30% drove, 9% walked and around 2% cycled or caught the bus. About 18% of households have no car and about 35% have two or more. The houses with two cars on the drive and the flats with none are all within the same short walk of the station, and they use the town in completely different ways.
Buses are better than the commuting figures suggest. There are 175 bus stops in the area, and the 160 stops with timetable data average about 116 departures each on a weekday, with roughly seven buses an hour at peak times. About 89% of those stops also have a weekend service. Those counts are current, and they count departures, not routes. A town where only 2% of workers take the bus to work has a better bus service than most of its residents realise.
On the Department for Transport's modelled journey times, the average Epsom home is about 11 minutes from the nearest town centre by car, 11 by bike, 15 by public transport and 19 on foot. A GP is about 9 minutes away by car, 13 by public transport and 15 on foot. The nearest hospital is about 12 minutes by car and 20 by public transport. A food shop is about 10 minutes' walk or 7 minutes' drive, and the nearest employment centre about 9 minutes by car or 10 by public transport. These are modelled averages for the area from 2019. Distances to fixed places do not change, but bus and train services may have been cut since, so the public transport times are the ones to trust least. Almost everything in daily life is within a twenty-minute walk.
Broadband is the strongest link. Gigabit-capable broadband reaches about 92% of premises, and superfast reaches all of them. No premises fall below the legal minimum broadband speed. All the main mobile operators cover the whole area with 4G or 5G, so there are no mobile black spots to worry about.
Road noise is everywhere. More than 99% of Epsom's postcodes are near road noise of at least 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band in the area reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source, and about 34% of postcodes are near rail noise of 65 decibels or more, peaking at 70. Look the exact address up on the government's strategic noise maps, because in Epsom the question is how close the road or railway is, not whether one is nearby.
The area has 12 public charging points with 25 connectors between them, and none of them is rapid. Without a driveway charger, topping up an electric car means planning ahead, because there is nowhere to do it quickly while you shop.
Epsom is one of the better-connected towns of its kind, with frequent trains and buses and first-rate broadband. Its one real gap is charging an electric car.