(The original subway map with Jabbour's design below it)
In 2007 a man named Eddie Jabbour decided to design his own NYC subway map. He was motivated to help make the subway system more accessible to people that might not otherwise use it. His idea was that if the subway maps were easier to understand, then more people would use the subway.
Jabbour decided to change certain things from the original map. Some things he included in his map were: representing each train with its own route,having all the train lines curve at 90 or 45 degree angles to make the map more grid-like, horizontal text (no diagonal text), and other features. However, the city has not adopted the new map because it is not geographically accurate. This was the main downside from changing the map so much from the original. The most important thing to me in a map like this is being able to see the location of each station and being able to find a route from station to station.
I think these maps are important but lately I have mostly been using Google Maps when I need to plan a ride on public transportation. It eliminates the need to trace routes and locate stations altogether. It also includes buses and trains together so it eliminates the need to look back and forth at a bus map and a subway map. It comes in handy when I'm back home in San Francisco since I don't own a car. It was great when I visited Tokyo because it made an extremely complex train system I had never used before relatively easy to use. Public transit maps will always be needed but it seems that new technologies such as Google Maps are starting to make them less important.
What do you use when you ride on public transit? What do you find most important in a public transit map?
New York Times article on Eddie Jabbour's map
Hello, interesting post that you have. I personally think using public transit maps are useful. They are not that hard to read, and they are very useful when you're at the station and need directions.
ReplyDeleteI've never tried riding the subways here in the U.S., but in China and Taiwan, the subway station maps all have lane names, and each lane has a different color. This makes remembering which lane to take easy to remember, and if you are tracing the lane, you won't get confused with the other lanes. Therefore, for me, without a doubt, the most important elements are the names of the lanes and their respective colors.
I honestly think the issue with many public transit system maps are not the visualizations at all, but rather the planning of the actual city/routs etc. Civil engineering is by no means an easy job, but often time things are done without a lot of forethought. I've never had an issue with maps or system visualizations that were pre-planned (or sometimes redesigned -- although that can be even worse!).
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question though, I find color to be the most important aspect of transit maps. You can quickly distinguish how to get from where you are to where you want to go based on the colors. Then you just have to find the route number that runs on your color and see where those stops are along the route.
I also think you're right about interactivity being a key to solving the issue. Will touch screen terminals make the map completely obsolete?