I recently came across this new diagram of rapid transit in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area, and thought it interesting enough to review. Previous official maps of this network have been very generic and slipshod, so it’s good to see an attempt to make a more distinctive and memorable diagram, though I don’t think it’s entirely successful.

Overall, I think it does a decent job of depicting a sprawling network – the labelling of stations is clear (using URW DIN, an excellent update to that venerable type family), and the route lines are easy to distinguish from each other. It’s interesting to note that there’s no distinction between transit mode (commuter rail, LRT, MRT, monorail, and BRT!) on the diagram – this is an integrated rapid transit network, so all the routes get equal visual treatment. You have to look to the legend below to ascertain which mode corresponds to which route (though it looks like the monorail icon that should belong to Line 8 has been transposed with Line 9 – oops!).

From a technical viewpoint, I do wish there was more of an underlying grid to hold the diagram together a bit better – lots of things almost line up with each other, but not perfectly so. Similarly, the distance between parallel routes could be more consistent, and none of the corner radii nest within each other properly, which always looks weird. Some more consistency in those radii would be good as well – some lines have lovely big swooping curves, while others have very tight corners. It’s particularly jarring on Line 5 where it immediately transitions from the biggest curve on the diagram to the smallest!

Like many Asian transit maps, this one uses numerical station codes in addition to names. Unfortunately, those numbers are contained within the small station marker dots, and are thus too small to be readily legible. I think these numbers are set in 4-point text on the printed map, which is just tiny.

Strangely, two future routes (Line 11 and Line 12) are shown with little indication that they’re not yet open. Line 11 has a “Coming Soon” note in the legend, but it’s actually opening well after Line 12 – which has no note at all! Peculiar.

Our final word: While this is much better than previous attempts, and starts to give the diagram its own unique look, there’s some work to be done to make it truly excellent. Still, a promising beginning!

Source: MyMRT website