Following on from yesterday’s post, thanks to “adros47” who left a comment noting that Transport NSW does in fact have an official map of Olympic Park special event bus services. Unlike Jimmy’s semi-geographical approach, this map is completely and unapologetically diagrammatic, and it actually works pretty well for me. 

About the only thing that I’d really like to see (as on Jimmy’s map) is an indication of how long a bus trip might take from each of the termini. Google Maps tells me that Warriewood to Olympic Park via St. Ives takes 45 minutes “without traffic” – my experience with driving in Sydney tells me that this would easily take over an hour in real world conditions, and that’s without stopping to pick up passengers along the way.

The map also reveals some oddities in the numbering system for these buses. What happened to Route 3? Also, there doesn’t seem to be any real logic to the numbering: counting clockwise from Route 1, they number 1, 2, 4, 7, 6, 5 and 8. A little odd, but not really a problem.

There is one little design oddity that bugs me: the stops along the blue Routes 1A/1B after they join together near Olympic Park (from North Ryde Public School to Rhodes) are all coloured as if they interchange with another line. In reality, only the Rhodes stop is shared with the red Route 2, so the other four stops should just be a blue tick, not an interchange lozenge. One could also argue that an interchange symbol is somewhat redundant on this map, as everyone only ever travels between their point of origin and Olympic Park.

Our rating: A very competent diagram that conveys a lot of information in a compact space. Three stars.

Source: Transport NSW’s Sydney Olympic Park web page – link no longer active