Northfleet is better connected than most commuter towns its size, and most of its residents still drive. It has its own station, with a high-speed station next door. Broadband is fast almost everywhere. Buses come often enough that nobody needs to memorise a timetable. Half of working residents use the car anyway.
Northfleet station has been on the North Kent Line since 1849, and Ebbsfleet International is just to the west on the high-speed line into London. Gravesend, Swanscombe and Greenhithe for Bluewater stations are close by as well. Even so, the 2021 Census found only about 6% of working residents took the train to work. There are 134 bus stops across the area, and about 4% of working residents commuted by bus. A town with two railway stations of its own and one of them high-speed still sends most of its workers out by road.
Around half of working residents, about 50%, drove to work at the 2021 Census. Working from home came next at about 22%, then walking at about 8%, with cycling at about 1%. About 23% of households have no car and about 33% have two or more. The first steamboat to London started running from next-door Gravesend in 1815, and two centuries of better transport since then have mostly produced traffic.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 11 minutes away by car, 14 by bike, 18 by public transport and 26 on foot. So by car, town is a quick errand and on foot it is an outing.
The same Department for Transport statistics put a GP about 7 minutes away by car, 10 by public transport or 11 on foot, and a food shop about 6 minutes on foot or by car. A hospital is about 19 minutes by car and 42 by public transport, and the nearest large cluster of jobs about 10 minutes by car and 18 by public transport. They are modelled averages across the area, and the public transport times date from 2019, before later cuts to services, so the bus figures are the least reliable of the set. The 42-minute bus ride to hospital is the one to remember if you do not drive.
The buses run more often than the stop count alone suggests. Stops across the area average about 67 departures each on a weekday, about three buses an hour at peak, and about 93% of stops have some service at the weekend. Those are current timetables, unlike the 2019 journey times, and they describe a bus network people can actually rely on.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 82% of premises, ultrafast about 84% and superfast about 99%, and no postcode falls below the minimum speed everyone is legally entitled to request. Almost everywhere has 4G or 5G from at least one network and about 99% from all of them. Ofcom's checker will confirm whether a particular address is in the gigabit 82%.
Road noise is everywhere. About 100% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant, and the loudest band in the area reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is mapped separately, and about 29% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels from trains, peaking at 70. That is the cost of a town crossed by roads and railways, and the same lines are why it is so well connected.
The area has six public charge points with 16 connectors between them, and two of those connectors are rapid. With two rapid connectors, most electric car owners here will be charging at home.
For a typical commuter, Northfleet's two stations get you into London, and for everything closer to home the car is quicker. Bus timetables are solid enough for the shops and the GP, but they are a slow way to reach a hospital.
Northfleet is better connected than average, with two stations, frequent buses and fast broadband. It falls short of the top tier because so few people use the trains, and because traffic noise reaches almost every postcode.