Big news out of Germany, where Karlsruhe’s KVV becomes one of the first European transit agencies to adopt a fully curvilinear diagram instead of the almost ubiquitous octolinear “Beck-style” diagram. The new map is shown here, with the old map for comparison beneath it. 

The old one is a solid, well-executed map, very much in the usual German style of transit map design – although perhaps a little too indistinguishable from many other very similar maps (Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, et al). Personally, I don’t see much wrong with it at all, though it’s certainly not exceptional.

The new one… well, I don’t know. It certainly stands out simply because of its unusual design! Maxwell Roberts (name-checked in KVV’s press release about the new map, now deleted) champions the curvilinear map, and has done some pretty extensive usability tests showing that route finding can be performed faster with them, but I just can’t warm to their aesthetics. They just always look really messy and disorganised to me, which isn’t what I want from a map that’s meant to be representing sleek and modern transportation services.

Definitely interested in hearing others’ thought on this. What do you think of this new curvy transit map?