Very well by rail, and most of the town barely uses it. Three railway lines meet at the station. About four in ten workers stay at home. Roughly one in twenty takes the train to work. Redhill has the timetable of a junction and the habits of a home office.
Redhill Rail Station sits where the Brighton Main Line, the North Downs Line and the Redhill to Tonbridge Line cross, with direct trains towards London Victoria, London Bridge, Gatwick Airport, Reading and Tonbridge. Earlswood, Merstham, Salfords and Nutfield have their own stations, and Reigate is a short hop west. At the 2021 Census, though, only about 5% of working residents took the train to work, and about 3% took the bus. There are 171 bus stops across the area. Plenty of residents bought into the timetable and then never looked at it again.
The commute is mostly a walk down the hall. About 42% of working residents worked from home at the Census, and about 34% drove. Around 10% walked and about 1% cycled, which tells you how the hills and the traffic feel about bikes. About a fifth of households have no car, while about 35% run two or more. The multi-car household and the car-free flat share the same postcode and very different Saturdays.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics, modelled for the area rather than measured from any particular front door, put the nearest town centre about 9 minutes away by car, 12 by bike, 15 by public transport and 22 on foot. A GP is about 8 minutes by car, 14 by public transport and 17 on foot. A hospital is about 12 minutes by car and 23 by public transport. A food shop is about 7 minutes by car or 10 on foot, and the nearest cluster of jobs is about 5 minutes by car or 9 by public transport. The public transport times date from 2019 and services have been cut since, so trust the car and walking figures more than the bus ones.
The current bus figures hold up better than the old modelled times suggest. Stops average about 76 scheduled weekday departures each, with about 4 an hour at peak, and about 94% of stops have some weekend service. That is a real bus service, not a timetable pinned up for decoration.
Broadband is strong. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 83% of premises, ultrafast about 84% and superfast about 97%, and no premises fall below the universal service minimum. The home-office majority chose well. Mobile coverage is complete in practice, with about 100% of the area reached by at least one operator's 4G or 5G and effectively all of it by every operator.
Road noise is the cost of all that connection. More than 99% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats traffic as significant, and the loudest band present reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source, with about 37% of postcodes near or above the same 65-decibel threshold and the loudest band also at 75. None of that predicts how a given bedroom will sound, which is what a second viewing at rush hour is for.
Electric vehicle charging lags behind everything else. The area has 6 public charge points with 15 connectors between them, and only one of those points is rapid. With a single rapid charger, a top-up is something you book into the week, not something you do while the shopping gets packed.
For a typical commute, Redhill works either way: the station puts London and Gatwick within easy reach for anyone who has to go in, and the broadband makes a strong case for not bothering. The car handles the local errands in minutes. The weak links are the lone rapid charger and a background hum of traffic most buyers will hear before they see it.
Redhill is better connected than most Surrey towns of its size, even if the charging network is still in its infancy: the rails and the fibre do what they promise, and the charging network has some catching up to do.