Submitted by Hilário, who says:

Recently I was back in Auckland, after not having been there for years. I discovered that my parents have never caught the bus there; this is despite them living close to reasonable bus routes, and – as senior citizens – having free public transport most of the time. (They are not against public transport; they are just migrants who were never shown how to look up public transport information.) So I tried to get them interested in catching the bus, “You can get to and from home for FREE!”, and I drew them an A4 schematic map of the public transport services in their world.

The map is geared towards just these two people. (I should have done it in my parents’ languages, but… I was basically too lazy to do it in languages other than English.) During my time with them I observed the range of places that they might need to go to, and facilities that they might need, e.g. medical facilities, closer-by shopping centres, public toilets. I have only included lines that they are likely to need, as I didn’t want to clutter the map any further. (For other lines, they can look them up in the official network maps.)

How much each transport hub/station is visually accentuated in the map is based more on its saliency in their lives, and less on its actual size. As for the line colours, I followed the line colours as used by Auckland Transport, so sometimes I could not avoid placing lines with similar colours next to each other. (As for the train lines, I used hues from an older version of the official train network map, to make them somewhat more distinctive from the adjacent bus line colours.) Frequency of the services is indicated by line width and dash style. The apartness of the bus versus train lines at Newmarket and Sylvia Park is iconic of their actual distance. There are also two small circular areas of which the representations are geographically true, and all the bus stops within are shown: these are areas where they need to know the exact location of bus stops.

(They were very happy when I took them on buses, trains, and the ferry, all of them free to them off-peak.)

Transit Maps says:

This is such a heart-warming story, Hilário — thank you for sharing it! Being able to take your design skills and create something so personal and useful to your parents, giving them the confidence to use public transport in their daily lives… it’s just wonderful (I’m not crying, you’re crying!).

What I particularly like is the amount of tailored information that’s there just for your parents: where they get haircuts, where the shops are, where public restrooms can be found, as well as all the hints and tips aimed at helping them find their way confidently. The two detailed insets have just the right amount of information and are integrated into the main map nicely. I also really appreciate that the map isn’t over-designed: this isn’t some fancy piece of high art, but a simple, easy-to-read tool that’s completely appropriate for its (very specific) target market.