Submitted by Simon, who says:

Hey there! I read your blog for a while now and, being sort of interested in graphical line maps, I made my first own one. I recently moved to Oslo and I saw you already had the official one on here, and a reinterpretation. The corporate identity of Ruter, the transit authority here is already pretty nifty; the metro map sort of falls short a little on that behalf (in my opinion). 

I tried to keep the big font size, as I think it is a quality of the original one; I made the “Ring” more… well, “ring-like” and slightly redesigned the line signets and the T-Bane-Logo. I also tried to make a short, comprehensive info- and legend-section, which up to now is sort of just thrown onto the map. I would love your feedback!

Transit Maps says:

I reviewed the official Oslo T-Bane map way, way back in November 2011 (when this site was just one month old!), so I note with interest that Simon’s map reflects an almost complete restructuring of the routes that has taken place since then. Almost every line has either changed colour or number, with only Line 1 remaining as it was previously. Simon’s map also doesn’t show the current temporary bus replacement service along Line 3 while it is modernised, but I guess he wanted to show a perfect representation of the system, so that’s fair enough.

The map is quite elegant and flowing, with nice large arcs and corners used throughout. This is very successful for the inner “ring”, which looks fantastic, but I’m not so fond of the curves at the western outer ends of Lines 1 and 2. All the other outer line ends are straight, so the two exceptions to this rule look slightly out of place. This is exacerbated by some uneven spacing of station name labels – Ringstabekk, Bekkestua and Gjønnes on Line 1 are very close together, for example – and the need to alternate some labels on opposite sides of the route lines because of these curves.

I do love the simplicity of Simon’s reworked circular line numbers – nothing hugely original, but they are implemented nicely, with some very consistent positioning at the ends of each route line. This simplicity perhaps makes the combined 4-to-6 icon look a little overworked and fussy, however. I’d like to see a simpler solution to that design problem than this.

Simon’s legend is also very nicely laid out: certainly much better than the official map, which just fits it into the only remaining space left on the page. There is one oddity, however – the only line that extends its services in the middle of the day is the eastern end of the lavender Line 1, but Simon instead uses the red Line 5 as the example of this service pattern in the legend, which is a little confusing.

Our rating: A really nice reinterpretation of an already lovely diagrammatic map. With a few reworkings and minor tweaks, this could be truly excellent. Three-and-a-half stars.