Rustington is well enough connected for a coastal village and no better than that. The nearest railway station is shared with two neighbouring parishes. Buses run along the coast in both directions. Broadband is fast at most addresses. About three in ten residents work from home, which is the answer for anyone whose commute doesn't fit the timetable.
The railway station Rustington uses is Angmering Rail Station, shared with the parishes of Angmering and East Preston. Trains run east to Brighton and along the coast to Portsmouth and Southampton, with regular services to London further inland. Around one in fifty working residents commute by train, which is a small share and says more about who lives in the village than about how good the train service is. There are 154 bus stops within the wider area, and buses run along the coast in both directions with stops inside the village. About one in a hundred working residents commute by bus. In a village where over half of workers drive, the buses exist for the people who do not.
Broadband is where the connectivity picture strengthens. Superfast reaches near enough all premises. Gigabit is available at about seven in ten addresses. Mobile signal from at least one operator covers all of the village, with near-universal coverage across all major operators. Electric vehicle charging is thinner. Five chargers sit within the wider area, seven connections between them, two of them rapid. If your commute is a home-office desk and a video call, Rustington is well set up for it. If your commute is a train station car park at seven in the morning, it is less so.
The commute profile is a coastal village profile. Roughly three in ten work from home. Just over half drive to work. About one in seventeen walk. About one in forty cycle. The train and bus shares combined come in under three percent, which is what happens when a station is shared with two neighbouring parishes and buses run at shopping-trip cadence. Journey time from Rustington to the nearest town centre runs about ten minutes by car and about seventeen minutes on public transport. Journey time to the nearest primary school is about eight minutes by car. To the nearest secondary school, about ten. Rustington runs on cars, and the cars run on short distances. The village geometry rewards driving because everything worth reaching sits inside the ten-minute ring, which is not a coincidence for a coastal parish laid out along one main road and a lattice of quiet residential streets. What that model does not deliver is a fast route out. If you need to get to a national conference by lunchtime, the answer starts at Angmering station and continues with a series of changes that eat the morning.
Three out of five on connectivity, which reflects a village that is well connected within its own coastal strip and less well connected to anywhere else. Fast broadband. Full mobile coverage. A shared station. A workable bus. A car culture that fits the geography. Nothing about the connectivity is broken, and nothing about it makes Rustington a commuter town. If you were hoping for a station of your own, a metro line, or a taxi to the airport at three in the morning, this is not the village.