Submission – Unofficial Map: Oslo T-Bane by Simon Heidenreich

September 29, 2015
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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.

Reader Question: What are the Most Common “Line Colors” for Transit Lines?

September 29, 2015
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Question: What are the most common “line colors” for transit lines? I’ve heard of blue lines, red lines, yellow/green/silver/purple/orange/pink lines, but is there anything I’m missing? Once a transit system gets over that amount of colors, do they usually switch to Line 1/A Train/etc.?

Answer: To answer your question, I’m going to point you towards Nick Rougeux’s excellent “Global Subway Spectrum” web page, which breaks down the route colours used by rapid transit systems around the world very comprehensively. I featured it on Transit Maps back in 2013, but Nick’s made some improvements since then, including giving RGB hex values for all the colours. Design resource, anyone?

The most colours used by a single system that Nick has listed is 15, for the Seoul Metro. This is closely followed by the Paris Metro and the Beijing Metro, both of which use 14 colours. Overall, red, green and blue lines are the frontrunners, although the spread around the colour wheel is actually surprisingly even. There’s also quite a lot of variance between different interpretations of the same colour: one system’s “Orange Line” can be decidedly different to another’s, while “blue” can range from light cyan all the way up to deep navy.

Once the number of colours becomes unwieldy, there are a couple of choices that can be made. You can group routes by their main trunk line with all of those lines sharing a common colour (like the New York subway map does), or simply reuse some colours for shorter lines that don’t interact with each other (the Paris Metro map uses this technique).

Bus maps – which often have far more routes than rapid transit maps – are increasingly using colour to denote service type (regular, express, limited, etc.) rather than individual routes, which greatly reduces the number of colours required.

Photo: “Transit Maps” Business Cards!

September 28, 2015
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I made some Transit Maps business cards! Printed by Moo, they feature one common front with all my contact details, and 25 different backs with artwork from all the many and varied maps that I’ve created over the years. They look absolutely gorgeous, and the satin finish card stock is superb: no flimsy “almost paper” card here!

(Now to remember to carry them with me.)

Submission – Photo: Hand-painted Wooden Tube Map by Camilla Barnard

September 26, 2015
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Submitted by Steve Collins. This lovely hand-painted Tube map is just a small part of an impressive installation at the designjunction exhibition in London. Artist Camilla Barnard, in conjunction with TfL, has built an entire Tube Station replica out of wood, including ticket machines and barriers, a newspaper stand and both eastbound and westbound stations. Fun!

Source: Creative Review – link no longer active.

“Light Rail” – A Real-Time Boston ‘T’ LED Map by Ian Reynolds

September 25, 2015
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Taking transit map wall art to the next level is this piece by Ian Reynolds, an electrical engineer and computer science student at MIT. Not only does it light up and look cool, but it actually queries the MBTA API to show the real-time position of trains on the system. Very awesome.

As Ian himself describes it over on Reddit, “The MBTA is a big part of life in Boston, and I built this as sort of a love letter to the transit system that we all know and love (to hate).”

Ian’s also written a longer article on Medium describing the process behind the map’s creation, which also has a short video of the finished piece. Hilariously, while I was watching the video, I was trying to work out which map Ian had used as his starting point. Was it the current official map? No. How about the old official map? Not that either. Hmmmmm… what could it be?

Turns out he’d based it off my map of the MBTA and I didn’t even recognise it. Talk about embarrassing…

Source: Ian’s Medium site via Reddit/r/boston

Future Map: Grand Paris Express Line 15 Circular Map

September 24, 2015
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Spotted by Theo Ditsek, here’s a lovely circular representation of the planned “Grand Paris Express” Line 15, which will eventually circumnavigate greater Paris. I believe the first phase (shown above as the bolder arc of the circle) is meant to be operational by 2022, although it’s reportedly already two years behind schedule.

The map itself was part of an exhibition about the project that was held in Vitry-sur-Seine, seen at the bottom right of the map. It featured renderings and models of the stations planned for the first phase (mostly designed by different architects for each station, artwork inspired by the project and more. Here’s an article in Liberation about the exhibition, complete with a nice big picture of the French President, Francois Hollande, standing next to this very map. It’s in French, but Google Translate does a decent enough job.

The map itself is definitely more conceptual than accurate, but it’s also wonderfully stylish. Connections to other rail lines – Metro, RER, Transilien and tram – are shown at each station, and connecting routes that run from Line 15 to and through the centre of Paris are shown as sweeping arcs, reinforcing how the new circle line will interface with the rest of the (already extensive) transportation network. About the only minor letdown is the treatment of the rivers. The idea is good – a stylised ribbon running through the map – but the execution looks a little stiff compared to the fluidity of the arcs used in the rest of the map.

Our rating: It’s all about connections! It’s a simple concept, but very deftly realised. 4 stars.

Submission – Official Map: Central London Night Bus Routes

September 22, 2015
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Submitted by ruddlesrocket, who says:

What do you think of this?  I think it’s probably the worst map that TfL produce, having neither the benefits of geographically accurate maps (it’s difficult to know what streets the buses run along), and diagrammatic maps, in that it’s almost impossible to trace the route taken by one bus.

Transit Maps says:

I totally agree with this assessment! I’ll never understand why some night service maps completely eschew the principles of good network map design. You know what I mean: black backgrounds, one colour used for all the route lines… that kind of stuff. Instead of showing routes from end to end, like a proper map would, this one makes every route the same “night-time blue” and overlays every service along common route lines. There’s not even any differentiation between 24-hour standard routes and night-only services.

As a result, I have absolutely no idea where any of the buses go. The “shield hunting” – a term that dates back to old road maps, where you’d have to search for the next highway shield on the map to follow your desired path – that is required to read this map is some of the worst I have ever seen, and I’ve basically given up trying to work things out. There are sometimes up to 17 buses travelling along the same section of road, which then split into multiple directions at the next intersection – this is repeated again and again in a seemingly maze-like manner. It certainly doesn’t help that the roads that the buses travel along aren’t named, although Tube station labels can help add a little bit of context here.

People who use late night buses may be unfamiliar with the options available in the wee small hours, drunk, or both. This map certainly isn’t going to help them get anywhere.

Our rating: Even the owl looks frustrated and cranky. Almost unbelievably poor, especially when compared to the high standard of bus spider maps that TfL produces for its regular services. Seems to have been produced almost as an afterthought. 0.5 stars.

Source: TfL Buses web page (no longer listed)

Submission – Chicago Table of ‘El’ements

September 21, 2015
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Submitted by long time contributor, Kara Fischer, who asks:

Clever idea? Or useless eye-candy?

Transit Maps says:

Definitely just eye-candy, and really only made because of the terrible ‘El’ements pun in the title. It’s certainly not useful in any meaningful way and doesn’t bear anything but a superficial resemblance to the actual periodic table of elements. 

Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, by the way, is one of the most information-dense infographics ever, with both the rows and columns revealing important information about the elements in addition to the information contained within each cell. A new row (or period – hence the name of the table) is started when a new electron shell has its first electron. Columns (groups) are determined by the electron configuration of the atom; elements with the same number of electrons in a particular subshell fall into the same columns. It’s so good that it was used to predict the properties of elements before they were discovered or synthesised.

This, on the other hand, is a glorified list of stations arranged in a grid and coloured to make it look just enough like a periodic table. As the “elemental symbols” are always just the first letter of each station’s name, there’s a slew of repeated letters everywhere – unlike a periodic table where each symbol is an unique identifier for each element. 

Our rating: Not a map, not a meaningful table of information – just a visual to support a pretty terrible gag. It is nicely put together, though: just not my cup of tea.

Source: TransitTees.com

Official “Map”: Portland Streetcar Conceptual Diagram

September 18, 2015
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While I may be undecided about certain elements of the new official Portland Streetcar map, I do quite like this simple little diagram that can be found on their website. With a minimum of fuss, it shows the two new loop lines, the two bridges they cross over the Willamette River on and the four distinct neighbourhoods that they link together. Okay, so the NS Line looks a little vestigial, but let’s let the loop lines have the spotlight for a while!

Source: Portland Streetcar website – link no longer active

Official Map: Portland Streetcar, 2015

September 17, 2015
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Amidst all the hoopla surrounding the opening of the new MAX light rail Orange Line, it’s easy to forget that Portland’s streetcar is now also running over the new Tilikum Crossing bridge. They’ve taken this opportunity to rework their system map to bring it more in line with their new branding – check out the rather nice new logo at the top left of the map, which doesn’t look half bad on the streetcars themselves.

I say “rework”, because a comparison with the previous map shows that the underlying basemap is almost identical, although it’s been given pastel neighbourhood colours on the new version. The typography has also been updated to use Halis Rounded, in-keeping with the new brand. It’s a nice, slightly softened sans serif that gives off a vague Neutraface or Verlag vibe without being quite as idiosyncratic as either of those better-known typefaces.

The really interesting thing about this map is the decision to split the newly completed Eastside loop into two separate route lines, the clockwise magenta “A Loop” and the counter-clockwise teal “B Loop”. I guess that this makes some sort of operational sense – and it would be nice for tourists to get that immediate sense that they’re on the right streetcar to go to OMSI, for example – but it works a little strangely in the section between PSU and South Waterfront. 

In this section, all three of the streetcar routes come together. But while the route lines for the A and B Loops each indicate travel in a single direction, the lime green route line for the NS Line – which is the same thickness – indicates bi-directional travel. What this means is that this part of the map no longer really works to give a quick visual idea of service frequency. If there were two route lines that were both indicative of bi-directional travel, and you knew that they individually ran at 20-minute intervals, you could then surmise that there was a 10-minute headway when the two route lines ran next to each other. Now, it’s a little trickier, as there’s three route lines of equal thickness, but one of them means something different to the other two. In the end, this only affects a small part of the map and perhaps this oddity is offset by the benefits of clarity that separating the two loop routes out offers. I’d be interested to hear others’ thoughts on this: good or bad?

Our rating: Visually, an improvement on the previous iteration regardless of the route designations. Three stars.