Combination system map/schedule display for Ontario’s GO Transit commuter rail system. Things start to get a bit silly when the map morphs into even thicker lines that lead from the routes to the nearby colour-coded timetables. Overkill, methinks.
Source: Chris Drew/Twitter
Submitted by Kara, who says:
I’ve attached the second edition of my “NM Transit Guide,” which I previously submitted one or two weeks back. The new version includes, along with some visual changes that I feel make it more aesthetically pleasing, a feature which as far as I can tell is a unique form of presenting information – I’ve never seen it on any other transit map. On the reverse side of the guide I have several tables of connections, showing where and when you can transfer from one route to another – and even accommodating trips involving multiple transfers! Planning a trip from, say, Taos to Jemez Springs, takes about fifteen minutes using prior knowledge and the available online schedules; with this guide I’ve managed to reduce that to one or two minutes. I’d love to know what you think of this method of presenting information, and of the guide in general. I feel this is a huge step up from my Park & Ride maps of last summer!
Transit Maps says:
From this and the drafts that Kara has previously submitted, I can see that a great deal of work and thought has gone into this, but I feel it can still be improved upon.
First thing: I think that the mid-grey background is hindering, not helping, this map. There’s a reason why most transit maps have a white or very light background: it helps to maximise contrast between elements. If you converted this map to greyscale in Photoshop (as I’ve done below), you’d find that the background is pretty close to 50% black, which means the most contrast it can ever have compared to another element is 50% – either all the way to black or all the way to white.
And as you can see, all the elements that aren’t pure black or white are compressed closer to the background’s mid-tone, resulting in low contrast throughout. Probably fine for people with good vision, but terrible for low lighting conditions or riders with poor eyesight. I personally also find the dark grey background a little oppressive and not at all “southwest desert” in tone. I like the colours in a map to evoke the place they represent, and the wonderful palettes available in a place like New Mexico should really be utilised to their fullest extent.
Next: hierachy. The Rail Runner commuter rail is represented by a thick yellow line, but with a white stroke through it that differentiates it from the Park and Ride Intercity Express Bus services, which are also thick and colour-coded by route. However, all the other bus services (which are also intercity and sometimes have frequencies that match or exceed the P&R buses) are relegated to thin, spindly lines that are only coloured to show which company they represent. As a result, line thickness doesn’t seem to indicate either mode or frequency, instead being a somewhat arbitrary divider of “important” vs. “non-important” routes. Frequency would seem to be a big issue for services in this part of the world, with some routes running as many as 13 times a day and one (the 360 between Taos and Tres Piedras) only running once a week on Wednesdays. Yet the map makes no attempt at all to show this. Having a bus that only runs on one particular day each week would seem to be a big deal. I’d be really interested to see this map reworked as a frequency map, much as the awesome new San Francisco Muni map is.
Clarity of information: I’d say that listing each route number next to its termini is imperative. At the moment, tracking down exactly where each route starts and ends is a little difficult, especially when they’re not listed in the legend to the right. Extra route numbers along the way to guide users through the more congested parts of the map are fine, but start and end points are extremely important! Pay attention where there could be potential confusion – I still don’t know which bus route(s) run between Eldorado and Santa Fe Place.
Overall, I’d like to see the shapes the “minor” bus routes take simplified a little more to match the lovely stylised, wide, sweeping curves that your “thick” routes take: they can seem a little cramped and fussy in a few places. Expanding the central/Santa Fe part of the map could help a bit here: there’s a lot going on in a very small space in this section of the map.
On the positive side, I’m really intrigued by your connections table and think it just needs a bit of spit and polish to really make it sing. I reckon you could just list the “Arriving” bus once on the left hand side if it connects with multiple other services on the right. Think of it as this bus connects with all of these buses. It would cut down on duplicated names and make things even quicker to find. Generally, text in tables should ranged left, rather than centred – it makes it easier for the eye to follow down a column if all the text starts in the same relative position. It also makes sorting and finding by word length easier. Time entries should be aligned on the colon, so that the hours and minutes columns line up properly. If you’re using OpenType fonts in InDesign, activate the “Tabular Lining” option for numerals in the Character palette, as this ensures that all numbers, regardless of character width, take up the same horizontal space, aligning perfectly in columns every time. Finally, I’d definitely see if you could do some testing of this table with some real commuters, just to see if it makes things as easy as you think it does. People react to information in very different ways!
Keep on refining and revising this with a clear objective in mind and this map will only get better!
Submitted by Arne, who says:
It suddenly appeared to me that the Berlin S-Bahn system had the form of Da Vinci’s Man of Vitruvius: a circle (Ringbahn), two arms (Stadtbahn) and a head + legs (Nord-Südtunnel and the southern branches at Yorckstrasse), with Friedrichstrasse as the heart of the network. So I made a map. What do you think?
Transit Maps says:
Well, that’s certainly a creative and unusual way to interpret the Ringbahn! Of course, it’s a diagrammatic representation, so things can be tweaked to suit the designer’s vision – lining up Schöneberg with the Vitruvian Man’s left foot; raising the Stadtbahn’s horizontal axis up to mimic the arms, etc. The real Ringbahn is nowhere near so perfectly neat, taking a far more convoluted path through Berlin’s outer suburbs. According to Wikipedia, the distinctive shape formed by the Ringbahn earns it the the nickname “Hundekopf” (dog’s head)… which I can just about imagine if I squint long enough at the real map.
Still, full marks for creativity and the skill to turn that idea into something convincing!
Question: What’s your opinion of Pablo Impallari’s Cabin font? The first time I saw it it screamed “transit map” at me, and I’m curious to know what you think.
Answer: Seeing as the author’s own description of the typeface says this…
The Cabin Font is a humanist sans inspired by Edward Johnston’s and Eric Gill’s typefaces…
… I think that it would probably qualify as a fine wayfinding/transit map typeface just by pedigree alone. More Johnston Sans than Gill Sans, which is a good thing (in my opinion), the typeface seems nice and balanced, and differentiates well between “I”, “l”, and “1″, which is essential in a good wayfinding font. It’s not without its quirks, though: the flared “M” and square tittles (the dots above the lower case “i” and j”) won’t be for everyone. Still, it’s very definitely worth a try, especially if your map is trying to evoke a London Underground or 1930s feeling.
Source: Cabin Font/Github
Question: Is there a reason that props departments often alter transit maps used in movies? Is it to get around copyright issues?
Answer: Absolutely! Almost every official transit map in the world is copyrighted and owned by the agency it represents. This means that permission – and often, a hefty licensing fee – is required to use the map for commercial purposes. So, rather than go through that, most TV shows/movies will quickly pull together their own version of the transit map they need, with varying results.
Fast forward ten years from yesterday’s excellent diagrammatic map of bus services in Iceland, and we’re now left with this sad thing. There are far fewer routes, although I’m not sure if that’s because service has been reduced or the map is only showing the routes of one company.
The geographically-accurate shape of Iceland sits uneasily with the crudely straightened route lines: this map has none of the elegance of the earlier version. On a positive note, the glaciers are white now, which is better than blue!
Our rating: Disappointingly average, especially compared to the earlier map. 2.5 stars.
Great photo of a handsome rectilinear diagram of island-wide bus services in Iceland from back in 2005. The big blue blobs in the middle aren’t lakes, they’re glaciers. Reykjavik’s importance as the main transportation hub is well illustrated.
Source: Arnþór Snær/Flickr
Based on feedback from the first draft of this new version of my Amtrak as subway map, I’ve gone and made a few edits, additions and corrections.
The major revision is a reworking of the main section of the Northeast Corridor between New York and Washington to make things a little clearer. I’m still using overlapping “multiplied route colour” lines to indicate identical service patterns, but I’ve broken the routes down into smaller, thematically linked groups: the three “local” Empire Corridor routes (the Empire Service, Adirondack and Ethan Allen Express); the three “inland” routes (the Cardinal, Carolinian and Crescent); and the three Atlantic Coast/Florida routes (the Palmetto, Silver Meteor and Silver Star). These groupings are reflected in the ordering of the route designation disks at New York Penn Station, and the terminus dot for each group displays all three route colours.
With the help of readers, I’ve located and added another three stations: the North Carolina State Fair (which, like the New York State Fair station, only operates for the dates of the fair each year); Lexington, North Carolina (which is only open for one day each year – for the annual Barbecue Festival held in October); and Hillsborough, North Carolina, which is slated to open sometime in 2015. I also heard tell of a Charlotte Airport extension of Carolinian and Piedmont services, but can’t seem to find a solid construction date for it, so it remains off the map for the time being.
The Hoosier State is back on the map, which did require a change in colour for the City of New Orleans, as otherwise the red California Zephyr line would have been directly above the similarly-red City of New Orleans line, making it look as if one long route extended through Chicago. I appropriated the Palmetto’s orange line colour for this, and made the Palmetto a new silver-grey colour to tie in with the two other routes in its thematic group (the “Silver Service” trains).
On this version, I’ve also included the now long-suspended section of the Sunset Limited between New Orleans and Jacksonville, just so you can see how it fits neatly into the structure of the map. Restoration of this service by Amtrak is extremely unlikely, and I would not include this segment on any final version of this map.
As always, comments are most welcome! Almost there, I think!
I saw the animated GIF above on Twitter yesterday, and Shawn was kind enough to share the whole map with me, so I present it here. As Shawn himself says:
I took Vignelli’s color contrast + existing map’s geographic accuracy = the subway map of my dreams.
… cheekily addressing the MTA’s Twitter account and asking them to “please fix.”
Shawn’s revision definitely allows the subway lines (without doubt, the most important element of the map) to stand out from the background, creating a far more defined visual hierarchy (subway information first and foremost, locality information on closer perusal), although perhaps the map looks a little drab overall. What do you think?
Submitted by Nick, who says:
I’ve attached my draft map of an imaginary rail system for Connecticut — if you have time, I’d love to get your feedback!
We have little to nothing in the way of public transit that serves people who want to travel around and not just through Connecticut. We have some great bus systems (and our first BRT system!), but we’re served by rail lines that are used primarily for commuters to leave the state to work. I care a lot about my home state, and I can’t help but imagine how beneficial it’d be for us to have a system that serves so many currently unserved communities and helps them reach other parts of my state. This system would do just that.
I spent a lot of time struggling with how much information was right to present. I originally had Metro-North and Amtrak lines on here as well, but really struggled with labelling stations – because they currently serve so few stations on my map, I found it awkward for the lines to be there. More often than not, it just pushed the station labels farther from their lines — in too many cases, that led to confusing situations. And I struggled to decide how to portray them; should they be lines of equal length or thinner? How should interchange stations between them and the main lines work (this was particularly challenging)? And further, the whole driver behind the design of this system was to show how comprehensive the system is in moving citizens around Connecticut, not just through. So not portraying the actual interstate line helps emphasize this point.
I had originally started with circles as the main station signifier, but in trying to figure out how to incorporate the interstate lines, I found myself switching back and forth between circles, lines, and tick marks. I eventually ended up back where I started, and I feel confident with my choice.
I didn’t pay as much attention to color as I was hoping. Eight lines was a lot, and I found myself struggling to have line colors that were distinct from each other. In the end, I worked to make sure similar colors did not interact or were close.
Transit Maps says:
Nick sent me quite a few previous drafts of this map, and it was great to see the progression and improvement he made with each version. This is a really nice, well-considered piece that’s very clean and easy to look at. I particularly like the ligature “ct” logo: very stylish and clean.
I think the choice to only show intrastate routes, with additional pointers indicating Amtrak and Metro-North routes that continue outside the state is wise and prevents any possible confusion. Some might say that the newly-opened CTfastrack BRT between New Britain and Hartford should be shown, but hey – this is a fantasy map. Maybe in this world, the BRT never got built, or perhaps it’s been converted to light rail?
Nick says colours caused him some headaches, but I think he’s done a pretty decent job. The lemon yellow Bridgeport–Torrington line is a bit problematic as the white station dots disappear a little bit within it. I always like to make my “Yellow Lines” a little bit oranger to counteract this, something like M15 Y100 in a CMYK breakdown. The other slight problem is the concurrent green and orange lines into New London: it looks okay to normal viewers, but the two colours are actually very similar for some colour-blind users. Remember, you can proof for colour-blindness from within Illustrator and Photoshop.
Apart from that, I’d probably just move the “System Diagram” legend to the right to align with the right edge of the text above it. It just seems to be floating without any obvious relationship to other elements of the map at the moment.
All in all, really nice work here from Nick!
Source: Nick’s website – click through for some detail images and a full rationale behind the map.
