Wallingford is a car town with very good broadband. The nearest station is in the next village. Buses run often enough to be useful. About four in ten working people drive to work, and roughly the same number don't commute at all. The phone line reaches everywhere and the railway doesn't come into town.
The town's only station is Cholsey Rail Station, outside Wallingford itself, and at the 2021 census about 1% of working residents commuted by train. About 2% took the bus, even though there are 59 bus stops in the town. The Wallingford and Watlington Railway opened in 1866 and was meant to run on to Watlington, until a bank collapsed and the money ran out. The line that did get built lost its passenger trains in 1959, and the town has managed without a commuter platform ever since.
The census also shows how people actually get to work. About 41% of working residents worked from home and about 39% drove. Around 11% walked, which is a high share and reflects how compact the town is, and about 2% cycled. About 15% of households have no car, while about 42% have two or more. For most households, connected means the drive and the router.
The Department for Transport models the trip to the nearest town centre at about 8 minutes by car, 12 by public transport, 10 by bike and 15 on foot. These are modelled averages for the area, worked out in 2019. A town centre fifteen minutes' walk away is close enough that the car isn't needed for the everyday shopping.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 70% of premises, ultrafast about 78%, and superfast about 99%. No premises fall below the legal minimum speed. At least one mobile network covers 4G or 5G across the whole area, and every network covers about 99% of it. Working from home here is a reasonable plan.
The same 2019 statistics put a GP about 9 minutes away by car, 15 by public transport and 18 on foot. A food shop is about 7 minutes by car or 11 on foot, and a centre of employment about 11 minutes by car or 22 by public transport. The hospital is the one that matters most, at about 35 minutes by car and 68 by public transport. Distances to fixed places don't change, but the public transport times date from 2019, before some services were cut, so they are the figures to trust least.
The bus figures are current. The 25 stops with timetable data average about 54 weekday departures each, around 3 an hour at peak, and 96% of them have some service at the weekend. That makes the bus a reasonable way to get about town. Very few people use it to get to work.
Official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant at 65 decibels. Almost every postcode in Wallingford, about 100%, is close to or above that level, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is mapped separately and affects about 2% of postcodes, also peaking at 75 decibels. The mapping covers postcodes, so it can't tell you how loud one particular bedroom will be. The way to find out is to visit at rush hour and open the windows.
There are two public charge points, with four connectors between them, and one of the connectors is rapid. Charging an electric car here means planning around that one rapid unit, or charging at home.
Wallingford's connections are below average. Gigabit broadband covers most of the town and there are buses about every twenty minutes at peak, but anyone who needs to get further afield has to drive, starting with the trip to the station in Cholsey.