Submitted by Sergio, who says:

Hi Cameron! Some months ago I designed a map of my city Bogotá where it shows all of the services in the system in the shape of the map we know. As you know, there are a ton of services in Transmilenio, so a standard map wouldn’t work – thus each station having strip maps of the lines. However, I wanted to see how a full map would look. Of course I knew from the beginning that it would not be useful because the sheer amount of lines but I made it nonetheless. Hope you enjoy it! The north is to the left as accustomed to Bogotá related maps.

Transit Maps says:

In my review of the official Transmilenio zone map (May 2018, 1 star), I noted that the insane complexity of the network made making a full system map or diagram that was actually useful almost impossible. But Sergio’s given it a red hot go here, and the results are certainly interesting.

I definitely appreciate how he’s managed to keep a similar overall shape to the official map despite the incredible number of routes that are being shown. The gradients between the zone colours are nicely done, though some colour combinations are obviously more aesthetically pleasing than others. A little more care could have been taken with how the routes criss-cross each other, as the layering seems a bit random in places – most obviously where the brown “E” and red “F” lines cross.

The most obvious problem with this map (apart from information overload at the sheer number of routes!) is that the labels for the routes are far too small to be read easily. It can also be difficult to “follow” stops along a line, just because there are so many parallel routes of the same colour.

However, with some modifications, I could perhaps see this map working as an online interactive route planner, where the user inputs a route name (or starting point/destination) and the relevant route is then highlighted. I also wonder if there’s a way to reduce clutter a bit by grouping routes into trunk lines based on stops within the zones, but it really does look like each route has its own distinct stopping pattern!

Our final word: An excellent attempt at a difficult mapping problem. Probably not really usable as a printed map, but still a worthwhile design exercise!