Submitted by Nicolas, who says:

I live in Brittany, France, mostly on the western side of the region, so I am submitting its network map, containing coach, boat, and plane (yes, plane) routes in this great region.

Since merging the transport networks a few years ago, the region has decided to re-number the lines of coaches (to be fair, needed, there existed 4 line 1), where the last 2 digits will carry over with a 3rd added with the last digit of the deparment number (Finistère – 9xx, Côtes d’Armor – 2xx, Morbihan – 6xx and Ile et Villaine – 5xx). A single-digit line will get a 0 as last digit, and a b/c line will get 1/2/3 as last digit. Dashed routes are summer-only routes. I am meh on the whole thing.

On the joined map, from the official authority, only the 29, Finistère (westernmost) department, has switched over, the rest is coming this year.

I do think it is interesting that they went with a very schematic-yet-geographic design.

Transit Maps says:

I think what I like the most about this diagram is the restraint shown. Examination shows that this diagram seems to be loosely based loosely on multiples of 11.25 degrees, which offers a staggering thirty-two directions for lines to head in (I believe that the term for this would be dotriacontalinear). However, apart from Rennes – a major transport hub – which requires a lot of different unique angles for routes passing through it, the rest of the diagram wisely chooses from a much smaller subset of angles. This prevents everything from looking chaotic (or too much like a geographical map!) and I think the balance is just about right: complex where it needs to be, simpler in other places.

I also like the bespoke typeface – Region Bretagne New – which has just the right amount of quirkiness while still being nice and legible. Using big labels as the actual stations for major cities is clever and works well. The fact that most of the city names are quite short definitely helps, however!

As regular readers of the blog probably know, I’m not normally a fan of diagrams using overly-complex “faux geography” behind the route lines, but I think it actually works here, mainly because of the large area that the diagram encompasses, but also because the end result actually looks like Brittany without too much ugly distortion. It is interesting that the borders between the départements are drawn diagrammatically, though… probably to stop having a route line looking like it’s in the wrong département.

Overall, I do think there’s a bit too much empty/dead space around the edges of the diagram which could be better used: it really does look like the whole thing could be enlarged by about eight to ten percent and still fit onto the canvas.

Finally, where the heck is the legend?! It’s absolutely unforgivable to omit it on a complex diagram like this, where not everything might be immediately apparent to the user. For instance, a large number of stations have a dark blue diamond next to their name with absolutely no explanation anywhere as to what that indicates. And while it can be deduced that ferry routes with dotted lines indicate seasonal services, why make the reader work that hard?

Our final word: Shows a sprawling and extensive network with some excellent restrained diagrammatic work, but the complete lack of a legend is problematic.