Submitted by Cyryl, who says:
Kielce is a mid-sized (200,000 inhabitants) city in Poland, well-known across transport enthusiasts for its extremely inefficient transport system, consisting of over 60 infrequent (most of them make under 10 trips each way per day) lines. Local transport authority tried to make things a little bit easier… and produced something equally awful. It’s not easy to make meaningful scheme when you have nearly fifty lines on one stop, but this map is making orientation even harder now.
Transit Maps says:
At first, I thought Kyryl was joking when he said that there were nearly 50 lines at one stop, but it turns out that he’s not. The Zytnia stop on the southern edge of the city centre handles a ridiculous 42 different routes throughout the day, which is insane. The infrequent service that Kyryl also notes could have something to do with the fact that – according to Wikipedia – the city only has around 165 buses to run these myriad routes, meaning that (on average) there can only be 2 to 3 buses assigned to each route at a time, even at peak capacity.
The map is similarly dysfunctional, and almost impossible to use. The “shield-hunting” that’s required to follow a route from one terminus to the other is just too mentally taxing, and I just gave up after a while. Things aren’t helped by all the diagonal stop labels, especially the one stop at the northeast of the central zone that has a diagonal label in all four directions. What?
The use of a white or background-coloured keyline behind the labels to separate them from the background is a good idea in theory, but the designer has forgotten to pay attention to the mitre joins, so letters with acute angles have created huge “spikes” that jut out way above or below the type. Ugly work that’s easily fixed with a little attention to detail.
Our rating: This map reminds me a lot of this terrible night bus map for London (September 2015, 0.5 stars), except it’s even worse. Almost impossible to decipher, breathtakingly hideous and fully indicative of a transit system gone totally mad. Fully deserving of zero stars and an entry into the Hall of Shame.
Source: Official ZTM website (PDF)