Submitted by Stevan, who says:

I’d love to get an opinion from you about my concept for Nuremberg’s metro region transit map. I’m not huge fan of official Nuremberg-Fuerth map [which hasn’t changed substantially since I reviewed it back in May 2012 – Cam] so I decided to give a try and redesign the map. In past I’ve tried several times to create transit maps for few cities but this one is the first one I could complete. I’m sure I’m going to refine it in next few years. It’s based on Stuttgart’s isometric transit map display [October 2011, 5 stars] which I absolutely love.

Transit Maps says:

This is a pretty decent effort for Stevan’s first finished transit diagram! There’s a lot to like about the way he uses gentle curves to ease the green S-Bahn routes into the right position, rather than using abrupt angle changes to do it. It brings a little stylishness to the diagram, and shows that Stevan is not afraid of adding new elements to his work, instead of just slavishly copying the Stuttgart diagram.

That said, isometric diagrams are tricky things to work with, and adding curves to the corners makes them even trickier. As shown in the second picture above, a perfect circle becomes an oval when depicted using an isometric projection, with the quarters to the top and bottom being much longer than the side quarters. To my eye, it looks like Stevan has used normal circular arcs to join some of his sections instead of isometric ones – it’s most obvious on the two green S-Bahn lines toward the centre bottom of the map, which are much rounder than they should be. Part of the magic with these isometric diagrams is the illusion of a three-dimensional space, so anything which detracts from that illusion is to be avoided as much as possible.

A few other notes: the letters denoting the end of each route are way too small, and are difficult to read. I also don’t like the way that the end point for tram line 6 flips up at its southern end, as it implies that the tram heads that direction after leaving Docuzentrum, when that stop is actually the line’s terminus. Some of the station symbol lines on the western end of U1 partially cut across the adjacent S-Bahn line. In general, I think the labelling is too small and often too close to the route lines – something that could definitely be improved with a little effort and a slight respacing of the central part of the diagram.

Overall, this is a very promising first effort, and I look forward to seeing future revisions!