Submitted by favrebulle, who says:

This is a proposed regional rail network for Rennes, Brittany. The map is my own work. The network revolves around a central Ring. Lines come in two types. Main lines are in bright colors, and circulate all day, every day, twice an hour. Secondary lines are in pastel colors and run during rush hours, or during special events for the Expo Arena line. Intercity and high-speed services (not detailed) are the grey, outern lines. The stations are simple, white indentation in the lines. Texts come in only two angles. Finally, the map is in Breton.

Transit Maps says:

Stylistically, this map immediately brought to mind this commuter rail map from Madrid (June 2013, 3 stars), which similarly features a central ring and sharply angled corners.

I do like the interesting “half-circle” device used for stations, and the way it changes into a full circle when two lines are present, or a longer “pill” shape for three or more lines. It’s a logical transformation and is used effectively throughout.

Less successful are the pastel colours used for the rush hour services – they’re too visually recessive (the light yellow S24 line almost disappears completely), and S21 and S22 look way too similar to each other. Something that could help here would be to link the route designations in the legend to the lines on the map, so that it’s easier to work out where each line begins and ends.

Our rating: A nicely distinctive diagrammatic style of map that just needs a little more work on the usability side to make it really successful. Two-and-a-half stars!