Official Map: Rail Services of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina by Sebastian Gagin

January 9, 2018
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I stumbled across this beautiful piece a while ago while trawling Behance – an integrated diagram of rail services in and around Buenos Aires. The author says that the project was developed for the city’s Secretary of Transport, so I have to assume that this is official, though I haven’t found it in use anywhere else yet.

The diagram shows both the Subte subway lines (in their familiar colours) and the commuter rail lines that radiate out from the city with wonderfully languid, graceful curves. The city boundary is clearly denoted by a white background, which does a nice job of drawing the reader’s eye to the (more important) centre of the map.

A few minor problems: the small size and light colour of the orange Premetro station labels make them difficult to read, and some of the commuter rail service patterns are hard to make out – especially on the various branches of the “RO” Roca lines to the bottom right of the diagram, some of which seem to loop back on each other without a clear terminus.

This is one of a series of three maps: the other two show the central city zone as a diagram and as a geographical map. However, I feel that this is the most successful of them, striking a good balance between simplicity and information.

Our rating: Visually striking and altogether rather wonderful. Four stars.

Source: Behance

Submission – Unofficial Map: Radial São Paulo Metro Map by Nicholas Fernandes

December 22, 2017
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Submitted by Nicholas, who says:

Hi Cam!

Like many here, I’m a longtime fan, transit map lover, and amateur mapmaker. I am originally from São Paulo, and as you already know, not only do we lack a system comprehensive enough to meet passenger demand, but we also lack a map that is well designed and aesthetically pleasing. With more than 12 million inhabitants, São Paulo is the largest city in the Americas and daily, more than 8 million people ride on the 340 km of combined subway and suburban rail lines that cross the metropolis. To better serve the needs of the population, several expansion projects are underway, with 3 new lines being built and 3 existing lines being extended.

These projects, once completed, will alter the layout of the transit network in the city and will need to be reflected on the map that is seen and used each day by millions of passengers – something today’s design cannot accommodate so effortlessly.

These changes provide an opportunity to seriously revaluate and rethink the current design, as well as to propose a new vision for the future – a vision that goes beyond just designing a good looking and functional map, but one that also aims to change how Paulistanos view their city and they move about it.

With this in mind, I finally followed through a long desire of mine to redesign the system’s map.

Although I can’t say I am too much of a fan of the recent wave of using concentric circles and radial lines to redesign several of the world’s major transit networks, I found that this approach works surprisingly well for São Paulo. This represents a radical departure from the actual design and breaks the restrictions imposed by the “standard” 45 and 90 degree angles currently in use, allowing elements (namely station names) to be better distributed and preserving a sense of geography near the center. Some distortion was inevitable however, given the length of the suburban rail lines that extend east and west.

My biggest concern though is the size of my map. I’m not so certain it could be easily implemented on the rolling stock, but I think it has potential to be used on stations, or maybe even in an app, where size is not an issue.

It would be great to get your feedback (and dare I ask, a rating) on this as this is really the first transit map for a real-world system that I put together. I’ve worked on some smaller projects, but nothing as involved as this before.

Transit Maps says:

Like Nick, I’m not always an immediate fan of radial transit maps – I believe that the shape of the city should guide the design, not the other way around. The conceit works perfectly for some cities (like Amsterdam, for example), but other circular designs are shoehorned onto cities that such an approach really doesn’t work for. 

While I’m not overly familiar with São Paulo, a quick look on Google Maps shows that it does have quite a circular structure, with ring roads readily apparent. So I think that a circular approach is definitely worth trying here, and the result is rather nice indeed. it’s certainly more aesthetically appealing than the official map (last reviewed back in 2012, but still very similar today). I really appreciate the effort taken to future-proof the map with the addition of lines currently under construction, and the comprehensive legend does a great job of explaining everything on the map.

I will say that I’ll never agree with labelling stations in the same colour as their corresponding route line – it always creates a visual imbalance between the dark, strong colours and the light, recessive ones. Here (as always), the Yellow Line is the one that suffers the most.

While we’re on the subject of colours, Nick uses three small circles to denote services available at stations: blue for elevators, green for bike parking and red for car parking. This is problematic for colour-blind users, as the red and green dots look almost identical for them. Nick might consider using three different shapes to properly differentiate these simple icons – a diamond for elevators, a circle for bikes and a square for cars, perhaps?

Our rating: A compelling reinvention of a complex network map. There’s a lot to like here! Three-and-a-half stars.

Submission – Unofficial Map of Rail Services in Dublin, Ireland by Simon Allen

December 22, 2017
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Submitted by Simon, who says:

With the new map for the Luas tram system in Dublin being so uninspiring, I decided to try create an integrated map for Dublin’s Dart, Luas and commuter rail.  It’s a pretty indulgent map – in that I treat the Luas (tram) lines perhaps too similarly to the heavy rail lines, and the system isn’t quite complex enough to warrant a Vignelli style approach (neither do I apply his principles as rigidly as a die hard fan might!)

Even so, it’s nice to see Dublin’s transport network looking all-grown-up. I’d love to hear what you and fellow enthusiasts think, so I can continue improving the map. 

Transit Maps says:

Let’s just start by saying that this is infinitely better than the tepid Luas map (reviewed here) – a bright, bold, confident diagram that positively jumps off the page. I particularly like the way that the Central Zone area completes a neat diamond shape when combined with the yellow commuter rail lines… lovely! 

The treatment of zones is actually excellent throughout: minimalistic, but easily understandable. It’s so clean, in fact, that the little jog in the outer zone edge to the left edge of the map actually looks a little too complex compared to the simplicity of the rest of the map, though I can see why it has to be that way if the two sets of lines are to end level with each other.

I don’t have a problem with the differentiation of the modes – the dark dots for tram stations versus white dots for heavy rail does the job nicely for me. Also, the indication of short walks at interchanges is a nice touch, and certainly better than the confusing way the Luas map attempts to show this.

The typeface – FF Kava Pro, by the look of things? – has a lovely calligraphic feel to it (and I love the ampersand!), though I think that it’s perhaps a little too condensed for good legibility. I’d also argue that the Park & Ride symbols are both too small and too light in colour to be useful.

Our rating: Really quite lovely, though I think the type legibility could be a deal breaker in a real world application. Three-and-a-half stars.

Submission – Historical Map: Lines of the Lincoln, Nebraska Street Railway, 1892

December 16, 2017
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Submitted by Ethan, who says:

Thought you might enjoy this hand-painted streetcar map of Lincoln, Nebraska from 1892 (Link to high-res PDF). I particularly enjoy the attempt at route colors and what appear to be marked stops.

Transit Maps says:

Oh, I definitely do enjoy this one, Ethan! From the blue background and white linework, it looks as if this may have originally been a blueprint drawing of the city that’s then been embellished by the artist with colours, the painted details in the parkland and cemetery, and the tiny red ink annotations of street numbers along the major blocks.

Regarding the route colouring, I’m not exactly sure what it’s trying to depict, as the colours can change from yellow to orange to red to green along the length of a single route. State of repair? Congestion of traffic? Maybe it’s purely artistic? Without a legend, it’s hard to tell. 

As for the “marked stops”, I think those are actually just short sections of double track along single track sections where two streetcars could safely pass each other. Such passing tracks may or may not have been in the same location as a stop: you can see that some of them span a couple of blocks or more.

Overall, this is a charming view of an early American streetcar network. I love it!

Source: History Nebraska (PDF link)

Official Map – Luas Light Rail Network, Dublin, Ireland

December 14, 2017
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On the 9th of December, 2017, the Green Line of Dublin’s Luas light rail system was extended north from St. Stephen’s Green to Broombridge, providing a connection with the Red Line in the city centre. Of course, such an addition means a new map, which is always fun.

Zone-based fare systems can be tricky to incorporate into transit maps, and Dublin’s taken an unusual approach, breaking the city up into large zone “blocks” that extend out to the limits of the map, where the labels for the zones are. Stations that can act as being in zone or the other depending on direction of travel are placed in the empty white area between the zones. This approach works fairly well, although the big gap between Zone Central and Red Zone 1 looks like an error at first glance. A little unfortunately, the gaps between the other zones are visually suggestive of major roads, perhaps creating a false impression of the geography of the city (which is nowhere as regular as this blocky grid might imply).

I’m not entirely sure what the smaller line name labels at some stations represent… they seem to indicate both an interchange with the other line (see Abbey Street on the Red Line) and also a short-turn terminus (see Sandyford on the Green Line). Without a legend, it’s all a bit of a mystery!

Finally, the junction on the Green Line where the section to/from Broombridge joins onto the one-way downtown loop is very poorly drawn, as there’s no way that a reader can easily trace the path of a southbound train from Dominick to Parnell. Some sort of wye needs to be indicated here to give the right flow to the routes.

Our rating: Functional enough, if a little idiosyncratic in execution. Unusual depiction of zones. Two-and-a-half stars.

Source: Luas website

Submission – Historical Map: Madrid Metro Map and Linear Diagram, 1945

December 6, 2017
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Submitted by Pablo Martin, who says:

This is the Madrid metro map from 1945, I found the diagram below really interesting, as I haven’t seen a similar one for any other network.

Transit Maps says:

Nice find, Pablo! The geographical map is fairly clumsy and unremarkable, but the diagram beneath is very interesting. It’s what I call a “linear diagram” – each route is shown as a straight line, with interchanges indicated by a vertical joining line or bar. It’s not entirely unique (see this more recent example from St. Petersburg), but it’s not a form that’s ever been very popular. It only really works for relatively simple networks with a few clearly defined interchanges… Madrid’s four short lines at the time made it a perfect candidate for such a diagram. 

Submission – Fantasy Map: Proposed Winnipeg Subway, 1959 by Tyler Sterdan

December 4, 2017
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Submitted by Tyler, who says:

I found out that back in 1959, there was a proposed Subway system for Winnipeg, but it got scrapped in favor of busses. Most maps that exist of the routes are low-res or not very detailed, so I made one (One such map here – Cameron). I used nonconventional colours, and utilized patterns to help people with colour vision deficiencies read it. Any feedback is welcome.

Transit Maps says:

Overall, I really like this a lot… and not just because I’m a sucker for isometric-style maps. The one thing I absolutely adore is the combined interchange symbol/label. It’s not a device I’ve seen before, and it would only really work in a relatively simple system where two lines cross, but here it’s pretty much perfect.

While a simple network like this doesn’t really need to have to patterned route lines to aid colour-blind users – three colours can easily be selected to provide enough contrast – I do appreciate the thought behind the concept. If nothing else, it’s good to see an alternative approach to this design problem.

I’m not quite so keen on the leader lines for the normal stations. They seem a little unnecessary and busy, and I think that labels could be made a little larger throughout if the lines were deleted. Larger labels and no lines would also be a bit more in keeping with the mid-century minimalism suggested by both the date of the proposed subway and the rather wonderful stripped-down version of Winnipeg’s coat of arms at the top left. 

Submission – Official Maps: allGo Bus Network Circular Diagrams, Almere, The Netherlands

December 3, 2017
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Submitted by Arjen, who says:

allGo is the new name for the public transport in Almere (The Netherlands). With some rather special transit maps.

Transit Maps says:

Yes, these certainly are interesting, Arjen, and continue the recent trend towards more organic-looking stylised maps (see also the recent curvilinear redesign in Karlsruhe, Germany). It’s probably important to note that both of these diagrams are meant to be secondary overviews to a fully-geographical system map (PDF here), which – for me at least – does a perfectly good job all by itself for a system of this size.

It’s also interesting that the designer seems to have hedged their bets with the labelling: the day-time map has labels that follow the curve of the line they’re on (looks attractive, but definitely harder to read at a glance), and consistently angled labels on the night map (perhaps less aesthetically appealing, but easier to read).

Generally, the curves and arcs are executed quite well – apart from a few awkward transitions between curves in a few places – though I think the day-time diagram works better. First, the “spine” of the NS rail line through the map helps to link all the sections together, and the NS stations also give a centre to each of the neighbourhood “hubs” that the Metro bus lines are named after. In other words, the content of the diagram drives the thematic styling of it and it all makes ties together. The night map carries across the style but not the theme, so it looks more like random arcs and curves for the sake of it.

These diagrams were designed by Oog Design in Apeldoorn. Interestingly, both versions of these on their project page have labels that follow the curves, so the change to angled labels on the night map may be a late change, perhaps requested by the client. There’s also a look at some strip map and bus stop maps as well, just to complete the suite.

Source: AllGo website

Review: London Underground Architecture and Design Map by Blue Crow Media

November 25, 2017
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Blue Crow Media is an independent publisher of beautifully designed city guide maps on many subjects – you may be familiar with their “Brutalist Architecture” series – and this new map is the first in a planned series of maps about public transportation networks around the world.

Edited by Mark Ovenden (of Transit Maps of the World fame) with some lovely photos by Will Scott, the map promises to be an authoritative guide to the design and architecture of the world’s oldest rapid transit system. While it falls a little short of those lofty goals – there’s only so much information you can show on a two-sided sheet – it certainly provides a salivating overview of the highlights that should pique just about every transport and design lover’s interest, from the best of Charles Holden’s Art Deco stations to the locations of Underground roundels that use Gill Sans or Arial in place of Johnston Sans and even oddities like a connection between the Underground and the evil Daleks from Doctor Who! The text is just a short paragraph or so for each entry, but does a good job of pointing out why each example has been included, whether it’s for historical or aesthetic reasons.

The geographical map of the Underground on the reverse side is serviceable, but I feel like a little more could have been done with it. The stations listed in the text are highlighted on the map, but it’s quite subtle and could perhaps have been made a little more obvious. I’d also have liked to see some more photographs or pertinent facts incorporated into the map itself, as there’s quite a lot of empty space due to the geographical format. Still, it’s a handy overview of the whole network, and is executed quite nicely.

Best of all, at just £9.00 (around $US12), it’s a perfect stocking stuffer for the transit, travel or design aficionado in your family. Very definitely recommended.

Map at Blue Crow Media’s on-line store (UK)

Map on Amazon.com (US – affiliate link)

Submission – Historical Map: Original Conceptual Map for the São Paulo Metro, c. 1967

November 21, 2017
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Submitted by Frederico, who says:

This is the network diagram of the first company identity ever created for the São Paulo metro by Brazillian design agency Cauduro Martino, back in the late 1960s, when the network was still being conceived – you can see several stations and line branches that didn’t succeed. Alongside with the map, they also delivered to the metro a big project of visual communications involving the logo – which is still used today – station signage and information guidelines. However, in 1971, the São Paulo metro company decided to ditch the project and switch firms to Unimark, where the present-day identity was (for the most part) created.

Although I personally like the São Paulo metro identity (except for the map, which I find very confusing), this one feels so much more special and unique. It’s a shame that it never could happen. 

I found both the map and its history in a master’s degree thesis by Olivia Chiavareto (PDF) on the metro’s signage design. Portuguese speakers should check it out, it’s very interesting – the map is on page 64.

Transit Maps says:

This is a great find, Frederico – a look at what might have been if Cauduro Martino had been allowed to continue their work, which I believe began in 1967.

This is a pleasingly modernist diagram, with a distinctive diamond shape – one that echoes the Metro’s logo almost exactly – serving as the main design focus… the “visual hook” that I so often encourage in diagram design. Interestingly, it would seem that even though this map was discarded, part of it still lives on through the Metro’s logo, which is rather neat. And of course, it’s always interesting to look at early conceptual renditions of networks and compare them to the current versions some 50 years later! (Last reviewed in 2012, though the current version is stylistically very similar.)