Grays is well connected for a car and a laptop, and adequately for anyone who has to rely on the bus. It has a railway station in the middle of town. It has gigabit broadband almost everywhere. Barely one commuter in twelve takes the train. The quickest way to see how Grays travels is to count the cars, because the station timetable will not tell you.
Grays Rail Station sits in the town centre and runs direct trains to London, and the town's bus station is right outside it. Chafford Hundred Rail Station is close by to the west, with Tilbury Town Rail Station and Purfleet Rail Station also within reach. At the 2021 Census about 8% of Grays workers commuted by train and about 3% by bus. The area has 153 bus stops.
The commute is mostly by car. About 48% of workers drove, about 24% worked from home, about 6% walked and about 2% cycled. Only about a fifth of households have no car, and about 38% have two or more. A town built on a river and a railway now runs mostly on driveways.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey-time statistics give the nearest town centre as about 10 minutes away by car, 17 by public transport, 14 by bike and 26 on foot.
The same Department for Transport set puts a GP surgery about 7 minutes away by car, 11 on foot and 10 by public transport, and a food shop about 8 minutes' walk or 7 minutes' drive. Employment centres are about 12 minutes by car and 13 by public transport, though about 53 minutes on foot. A hospital is about 21 minutes by car, about 56 by public transport, and about two hours' walk. All of these are modelled area averages. The fixed distances do not change, but the public transport times date from 2019 and services have been cut since, so those are the least reliable. Without a car, a hospital appointment takes up most of a morning.
Bus service is better than the stop count suggests. The 127 stops with timetable records average about 63 departures each on a weekday and about four an hour at peak, and about 94% of them have some weekend service. Those figures are current and count departures, which is the number that tells you whether a bus will actually turn up.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 96% of Grays premises, superfast about 99%, and no premises fall below the universal service minimum. Every major network covers the whole area with 4G or 5G. The almost quarter of residents who work from home have the connection for it.
Road noise is the main cost. More than 99% of Grays postcodes are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source, with about 23% of postcodes near the 65-decibel mark beside the line. Neither figure says how a particular bedroom sounds, so it is worth standing outside a shortlisted house at rush hour with the windows of the house open. A town with the motorway on one side and the railway through the middle hears both.
There are three public charge points in the area, with seven connectors between them and one rapid unit. With only one rapid charger, charging an electric car in Grays is something drivers plan ahead for.
Grays is better connected than most commuter towns its size, mainly because of the station and the fibre. It works best for drivers and home workers, and the bus fills most of the gaps.