Submitted by Jakob, who says:
The M4 branch extension to Copenhagen South has just opened, and with it, a much improved map compared to 2019 [My review of the 2019 map can be found here – Cam]. The Circle Line is now more spacious, junctions are labeled more clearly, and metro lines have a strikethrough to better distinguish them from similarly coloured S-train lines (although the colours across the system should be aligned). Now, Copenhagen can look forward to its first light rail line in the Ring 3 corridor next year, a northern harbour extension of the M4, as well as a new circle line (M5) in the 2030s.
Transit Maps says:
A definite improvement over the previous iteration, simply because they’ve taken the time to redraw everything instead of just trying to shoehorn the circular M3 line into a pre-existing diagram. Everything feels a lot more considered and balanced this time around, as seen by the fact that no labels sit on top of route lines any more. Too many labels are angled for my liking: there seems to be plenty of room to straighten a lot of them out.
Swapping the background colours so the land is white and the water grey also helps a lot, increasing the contrast between the foreground and background elements nicely. Changing the water colour to a light blue instead of grey could perhaps enliven the diagram a bit, as the large flat area of grey seems a bit sterile. That said, the colour palette for the lines is rather gorgeous and I think they’ve hit the right balance this time around. The thin inner stroke on the Metro lines does give some level of mode differentiation without having to change any line colours, so I guess it does its job in the end.
The way the dark grey main line train route line disappears underneath the light blue “A” line on its way to Copenhagen Central seems like cheating, but again, does the job of getting where it needs to be without disrupting the unified rainbow curve of the more important S-Tog lines above it. Functional, if not entirely aesthetically pleasing.
Our final word: Shows the importance of taking the time to re-evaluate previous design decisions and perhaps even completely redoing things to come up with a much-improved final product.
Source: DOT website