Well served by buses, poorly used by trains, and quietly run on cars. Half of working residents drive to work. A quarter of households keep no car at all. There are close to two thousand bus stops inside the area. The city sits on a main line and almost nobody commutes on it, which says more about where the jobs are than about the railway.
Plymouth Rail Station is the main-line stop, with direct trains east toward London and west into Cornwall, and there is a run of smaller stations through the western suburbs at Devonport, Dockyard, Keyham, St Budeaux Ferry Road and St Budeaux Victoria Road, plus Saltash, Bere Ferrers and Bere Alston up the Tamar. Despite all that track, about three in a thousand working residents commute by train. Buses do the public-transport work instead, with roughly 1,980 stops in the area carrying about 6% of commuters. There are also passenger and vehicle ferries across the Tamar at Cremyll and Torpoint, and sailings from Millbay to Roscoff and Santander for anyone who wants to leave the country without going near an airport, which is convenient given the city airport closed in 2011.
The commute mix is where the argument settles. About 51% of working residents drive, about 21% work from home, about 10% walk, about 6% take the bus and about 2% cycle. Household car ownership splits the city neatly: about 25% run no car, while about 32% run two or more. Both of those groups exist in large numbers in the same city, which is why the parking arguments here are never going to end.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey-time statistics put the nearest town centre at about 11 minutes by car, about 20 by public transport, about 16 by bicycle and about 34 on foot. Those are modelled averages for the area rather than a route from any particular front door, and the public transport figures date from 2019, so treat them with more caution than the car and walking times, which do not change when a service is withdrawn.
Broadband is the strongest thing in this section. Gigabit service reaches about 91% of premises, superfast about 97%, and no premises at all sit below the universal service obligation. Mobile coverage is complete on the published measure, available from at least one operator and from every operator across the area, which is one line because there is nothing to argue about.
The same modelled statistics put a family doctor at about 8 minutes by car, 11 by public transport and 14 on foot, a food store at about 7 minutes either walking or driving, and employment centres at about 17 minutes by car or 15 by public transport. A hospital is the outlier at about 17 minutes by car against about 38 by public transport. Anyone without a car who needs regular hospital appointments should look at that gap before falling in love with a flat.
The service behind the bus stops is the part most cities cannot match. Stops with published timetable data average about 104 scheduled weekday departures each, roughly 6 of them in the peak hour, and about 92% of stops have some weekend service. Counting stops flatters everywhere. Counting departures is what separates a bus network from a row of poles.
Road noise is the tax on all that traffic. About 49% of postcodes sit near or above the 65-decibel threshold, the level at which official mapping treats road noise as significant enough to record, and the loudest mapped band in the area reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate and much smaller matter, affecting about 9% of postcodes, with the same top band present where the line runs close.
Electric charging is thinner than the broadband. There are 86 public charge points in the area offering 179 connections, of which 21 are rapid. That ratio makes charging something to plan around rather than something to do while buying milk.
Connectivity here lands above average on the strength of the buses and the broadband, and gets dragged back by a railway the city barely commutes on and a hospital trip that punishes anyone without a car. Good enough that a car-free life is possible, not so good that most people attempt it.