Submitted by Ryan, who says:

I’ve been working on a variation of a time-scaled transit map (more of a diagram, given there’s no geographic context).  I’m not quite sure how to handle the transfer stations.  I’d like to make it clear how long passengers will spend in the stations (walking, waiting) vs. how long they will be on the trains.  I’d be interested in what you think.

Transit Maps says:

I really like the concept behind this, but I do think there’s a lot of work that can be done to make this diagram visually more appealing and easier to understand. Some thoughts:

Put the numbers for the time legend to both the left and right of the map. Leave enough room that they can run from top o bottom without being interrupted – the way that the numbers for 0-10 minutes are in the middle of the diagram and all the others are off to the right is confusing.

Try and use evenly-spaced column widths between the different route lines, and – as much as possible – try to put all the station names to the same side of the route. There’s some places where labels clash, and it looks a bit ugly.

I’d really like to see a visual differentiation between time spent within a station waiting for another train to arrive and time spent walking between stations. According to the official map, there’s a bit of a hike between Tsim Sha Tsui and East Sha Tsui stations via pedestrian tunnels, so it’d be nice to see that represented. Similarly, the transfer between Central and Hong Kong stations could be represented like this as well. The balloon-like expansion of the interchange symbols to denote dwell time isn’t all that attractive, but I can’t think of a better solution off the top of my head.

The blue Island Line passes through Central station, so I wonder if it might be better to represent it as such, with the shorter section to Kennedy Town continuing above the station marker for Central (with an additional time legend for it), rather than having one part of it to the left of the diagram and the other way off to the right. It just seems a little disjointed.

The complexity of the system also breaks up some of the other lines into separate sections, depending on whether or not it’s time-efficient to reach various stations via a particular route. While unavoidable in the context of the diagram, it does add to the visually fractured nature of the piece.

If you haven’t seen them, Peter Dunn’s excellent time-scaled maps of the Boston MBTA and commuter rail systems are good resources, although the “hub and spoke” nature of those systems makes the task of time-scaling much easier. I think the basis of this diagram is sound, but needs some more work to really make it shine.

(P.S. Doesn’t the Airport Express stop at Kowloon and Tsing Yi?)