Windsor is reasonably well connected, but most residents hardly use the connections. It has two stations, both with trains to London. Hardly anyone commutes by train. Almost half of working residents work from home. The rest mostly drive. The links are good enough, and on most days the commute is a walk to a desk at home.
The two stations are both termini. Windsor & Eton Central runs a shuttle to Slough for trains to Paddington and Reading, and Windsor & Eton Riverside has direct trains to Waterloo. Datchet station is close by for anyone on the eastern side. Even so, in the 2021 Census only about 2% of working residents went to work by train. There are 135 bus stops in the area, and about 1% of workers went to work by bus.
The rest of the commute mix makes the point. About 46% of working residents worked from home at the 2021 Census, about 36% drove, about 9% walked and about 2% cycled. About 17% of households have no car, while about 39% have two or more. Windsor was briefly Berkshire's chief town after its 1277 charter. It lost that role because people found it hard to get to, and most of its residents now don't commute anywhere at all.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics put the nearest town centre about 12 minutes away by car, 14 by bike, 20 by public transport and 28 on foot. For a GP, the figures are about 9 minutes by car, 16 by public transport and 22 on foot. For a hospital, they are about 22 minutes by car and 40 by public transport. For a food shop, they are about 7 minutes by car and 9 on foot. For employment, they are about 14 minutes by car and 12 by public transport. These are modelled averages for the area, worked out in 2019. The car and walking times still hold because the distances haven't changed, but the public transport times are the least reliable, since some services have been cut since then. Forty minutes on public transport to reach a hospital is a long trip when someone is ill.
Buses are frequent, and the service figures are current. A typical stop has about 65 departures on a weekday and about four in the peak hour. About 83% of stops have some service at the weekend. Windsor's buses make a usable service, and the town has more of them than most places its size.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 78% of premises and superfast about 95%. No premises fall below the universal service minimum. All operators provide 4G or 5G coverage across the whole area. Working from home is easy to set up here, which helps explain why so many residents do it.
Road noise is where Windsor pays for its traffic. Almost every postcode is near the 65-decibel level that official noise mapping treats as significant for road traffic, and the loudest band in the area reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise doesn't register in any postcode. These are mapped levels for the area and won't tell you how loud a particular bedroom will be. The town's large central coach park is a reminder of how much of its road traffic is visitors.
There are 12 public charge points in the area, with 32 connectors between them, and two of them are rapid. With only two rapid units, most electric car owners will charge at home or plan ahead.
For a typical household, Windsor works well if you work from home and take the train into London now and then. It works less well if you need a car every day, because driving to work or the hospital means 20-minute trips on roads that are already busy. If road noise matters to you, check the noise map for the particular street before you offer.
Overall, Windsor's connections are average. The train links and broadband are good, and the hospital trip and the traffic noise pull the picture back down.