Submitted by Roberto, who says:

I would like to share the TRAM d’Alacant fare zone map. It describes the different zones and stops of this tramway/narrow gauge train in the Spanish province of Alacant (Alicante). It’s been reopened recently after six years of renovation works.

Transit Maps says:

This is a fairly solid diagram that shares a lot of design language with the transit map of Valencia (reviewed in July 2022). This is perhaps understandable, as it seems that the Generalitat Valenciana has at least overseen the design of both maps. Like Valencia, the main urban area (Zone A) has been expanded in relation to the rest of the map, which is basically one corridor running up the coast to Dénia some 45 miles/70 kilometres away. The city is similarly represented more geographically, while the outer reaches are diagrammatic with evenly spaced stations from one end to the other.

Line 3 (Yellow) acts a local service for Line 1 (Red), which runs express within the urban limits of Alacant most of the time – the legend explains that first and last trains each day on Line 1 stop at all stations. This is indicated by the red line being visible through the white “shared station” symbol, which I don’t find particularly intuitive – I wonder whether a dot on Line 3 with a longer tick line crossing Line 1 would have been more effective?

I have two main issues with this otherwise competent diagram. First, the representation of the coastline is overly fussy and poorly drawn. Do we need the little bumps near Benidorm? Or the wharf (or whatever the heck that is) near Calp? And if it is somehow important to show the port/marina area in Alacant itself, then show it properly, instead of cutting it off at the bottom of the canvas. The non-standard angles at the top of the diagram used to represent Cap Martí drive me insane.

Secondly, the legend looks like an afterthought just thrown down wherever. As with the Valencia map, the legend inexplicably gets broken up by a zone boundary when there’s plenty of room to fit it all within Zone B’s space. The typesetting is also poor – some entries have a very long first line (longer than an optimal reading length) and then a very short second line. It’d be much better to balance those lines evenly to create a more compact, readable block of text. I’m also a proponent of always starting a new line with each change of language, instead of running them one after another on a single line – it just makes it explicit that a change is taking place.

Our final word: Competent enough, but let down by some strangely unpolished design choices with the coastline and legend. Does the job.

Source: TRAM website