Twickenham is well connected, and mostly by cable. It has several stations of its own. The buses keep coming all week. Nine homes in ten can get gigabit broadband. At the last count, the commute most residents made ended at a desk at home.
Twickenham station is the main stop, and St Margarets, Strawberry Hill, Whitton and Fulwell are all within the post town, with Richmond close by. The trains are there, and few people used them for work. At the 2021 census only 5% of working residents went by train and 3% by bus, even with 127 bus stops in and around the area. The original Twickenham station was on the other side of the London Road bridge. When it moved, Railway Approach and Station Road were left behind, and neither leads to a station any more. The town's own street names can't be trusted for directions to the trains.
The same census shows how Twickenham really got to work. About 64% of working residents did so from home, 13% drove, 5% walked and 4% cycled. That census was taken in 2021, with the pandemic still keeping offices half empty, so the home share is a snapshot of an unusual year. Around 28% of households had no car and 20% had two or more.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 8 minutes away by car or bike and about 10 minutes by public transport or on foot. When walking is as quick as driving, the car is mostly there for the weekend.
Gigabit broadband reaches 91% of premises in Twickenham and superfast 96%, and no premises fall below the universal service obligation, the legal minimum for a usable connection. Every mobile operator covers the whole area with 4G or 5G.
The same Department for Transport model, which measures 2019 conditions, gives everyday journeys for the area. A GP is about 7 minutes by car or public transport and 8 on foot. A hospital is about 17 minutes by car, 27 by public transport and 43 on foot. A food shop is about 7 minutes whether you walk or drive, and the nearest substantial employment is about 5 minutes by car or 12 by public transport. The distances haven't moved since then. The bus and train times are the weakest part of the set, because services have changed since the model was run, so they are a 2019 estimate.
The buses themselves are busy. The 103 stops with timetable data average 347 scheduled departures each on a weekday, about 19 an hour at the peak, and every one of those stops has a weekend service. The trolleybuses that ran out of Fulwell made their last journey on 8 May 1962. Their replacements have kept to roughly the same patch ever since.
Road noise is everywhere. Rounded, 100% of Twickenham's postcodes are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant, and the loudest band in the area reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source. About 27% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels from trains, with a top band of 70. The government's strategic noise maps show both layers, so you can check a specific street before deciding whether a front bedroom is for sleeping in.
There are 75 public charge points in the area with 79 connectors between them, and one of those is rapid. With one rapid charger, an electric car here charges overnight on a schedule, and topping up during the weekly shop isn't really an option.
Connectivity is above average and leans heavily on the cable. The buses and the broadband are excellent and the stations are plentiful, though most of the people who live near them stopped using them for work.