Notting Hill is well connected, and about half of its working residents don't use any of it to get to work. Half work from home. Six in ten households have no car. At peak, each bus stop sees a couple of dozen buses an hour. The busiest connection in the district is probably the broadband.
The train hardly figures. At the 2021 Census only about 2% of working residents commuted by train, and about 8% by bus. The nearest stations on the national network are London Paddington, Kensington (Olympia), Shepherds Bush and Kensal Green. The buses cover the gaps, with 389 bus stops in and around the district.
The commute mix is where Notting Hill shows its hand. About 53% of working residents worked from home at the 2021 Census. Of those who did travel, about 10% walked, about 9% drove and about 4% cycled. About 60% of households have no car, and only about 8% have more than one. That fits a district with very little parking, where most homes are flats.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey-time statistics put the nearest town centre about 9 minutes away by car, 14 by public transport, 10 by bike and 17 on foot. The walk is the outlier, and 17 minutes is a short walk to the shops by most standards.
The same Department for Transport statistics give a GP about 6 minutes away on foot or by public transport and 7 by car. A hospital is about 12 minutes by car or 20 by public transport. A food store is about 5 minutes' walk or 6 by car, and a place of employment is about 4 minutes by car or 11 by public transport. These are modelled averages for the whole area. The distances still hold, but the public transport times date from 2019, and services have been cut since then, so they are the least reliable of the set.
Each stop sees about 482 scheduled departures on a weekday and around 25 buses an hour at peak, and every stop in the district has a weekend service. These are current timetables, unlike the 2019 journey times. Notting Hill's bus network runs on all seven days.
Broadband is close to complete. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 87% of premises, ultrafast about 91% and superfast about 99%, and no premises fall below the government's minimum broadband standard. Every mobile network covers the whole district.
Road noise is the price of all that traffic. Almost every postcode, rounding to 100%, is near or above 65 decibels from roads. Official noise mapping treats that level as significant. The loudest band recorded is 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source and reaches about 15% of postcodes, with its loudest band also at 75 decibels. Some of the lines through the district run on a viaduct, and the homes beside it hear the trains as well as the traffic. Stand outside the property at rush hour with the windows open before deciding.
There are 643 public charge points in the area, with 779 connectors between them, but only 9 are rapid. Without a driveway, charging here mostly means booking a slow kerbside point overnight, not topping up while you shop.
For getting about day to day, Notting Hill works well. A household without a car can reach a GP, a food shop and the town centre on foot or by bus, and anyone who works from home can rely on the broadband. Connections are one of Notting Hill's better points, with a frequent bus service and near-complete broadband, and the cost is the noise.