Tilbury is better connected than its edge-of-Essex position suggests, with its own station, buses at every stop seven days a week and gigabit broadband almost everywhere. About half of working residents still drive. One in ten or so take the train. The nearest town centre is a quarter of an hour by car and nearly an hour on foot. The town is wired for the modern commute and laid out for the old one.
Tilbury Town Rail Station is the town's own stop, with Grays, East Tilbury and Chafford Hundred close by along the same stretch of line. At the 2021 census about 9% of working residents took the train to work and about 4% the bus. There are 50 bus stops in the area.
The car does most of the work. About 52% of working residents drove to work at the census, about 14% worked from home, about 9% walked and about 2% cycled. About 27% of households have no car at all, while about 30% run more than one. The town splits between households that cannot drive anywhere and households that drive everywhere, and the station serves the gap.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, which date from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 15 minutes away by car and about 25 by public transport. By bike it is about 24 minutes, and on foot about 56. Nobody walks into town from Tilbury for a pint of milk, and the walk is long enough that most people never try it twice.
Broadband is the strong suit. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 92% of premises, superfast about 95%, and no premises fall below the universal service minimum. Every postcode has 4G or 5G from every mobile network. The fibre has caught up with Tilbury faster than the bus timetable has.
For a typical commute, that adds up to a short drive or a walk to Tilbury Town for the train, the car for anything across the borough, and a home office for the 14% who have found one. The passenger ferry across to Gravesend stopped on 31 March 2024, so Kent is now reached by road the long way round.
The same Department for Transport figures put a GP surgery about 7 minutes away by car and about 8 on foot or by public transport, and a food shop about 7 minutes' walk or 6 by car. The nearest hospital is about 24 minutes by car and about 58 by public transport, and employment centres about 10 minutes by car and about 18 by public transport. These are averages modelled for the whole area in 2019; the distances have stayed put, but the bus and rail timings are the part most likely to have aged badly since. Anyone without a car should check the current bus route to the hospital before needing it.
The buses themselves are a working service. The 38 stops with timetable data average about 46 scheduled departures each on a weekday, nearly three an hour at peak, and every one of them has buses at the weekend.
Noise is part of the package. About 37% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level official noise mapping treats as significant, and the loudest band in the area reaches 75 decibels. Rail is a separate source, and about 46% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels from trains. The railway is loud enough to register on nearly half the town's postcodes and used by about 9% of its commuters, which leaves a lot of people listening to trains they never catch.
Tilbury is fairly well connected, strong on broadband and buses, decent on rail, and weaker the moment a journey needs a hospital or a walk into town. Buyers with a car and a fibre connection will find little to complain about.