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Genius: Bus map color coded with frequencies

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The map at right shows bus routes in Salt Lake City, with each route color coded to show the frequency of buses. Freaking genius idea.

One of the many reasons that rail systems are usually more popular with casual riders than bus systems is that rail systems are much easier to understand. With just five lines, WMATA’s Metrorail map is a breeze to figure out. On the other hand, WMATA’s bus system is so complex that they don’t even produce a single system map. Instead, we get three bus maps, each of them practically impossible to decipher.

Part of the problem is that any large bus agency (WMATA included) will necessarily have a lot of routes that don’t come very often, and generally aren’t used by very many people. Those routes clutter up their maps, making the overall bus system harder to understand for anyone hoping to know where they can use transit to travel quickly and easily.

One solution to this problem is to produce a separate frequent service map. Such maps are incredibly useful, but their weakness is that users simply looking for a system map may not be aware that a separate frequent service one exists.

So why not put the info on the regular map? Do what Salt Lake City’s transit agency has done here, and show the frequent routes in a different color.

Sure, it adds a little bit of extra clutter, but it also adds a tremendous amount of extremely useful extra data. The clutter cost is low in terms of information provided.

To its credit, WMATA’s bus map does show some premium services with different colors. Limited stop buses get a blue dashed line. But otherwise, a bus that comes every 5 minutes is shown with the same line as a bus that comes once per hour. And frankly, knowing that the 16th Street bus line is supposed to run about every 10 minutes all day long is much much more useful to know than that there is a limited-stop operation on it for a couple of hours on workdays.

I like the limited stop route, but knowing it’s there is far less important than knowing that the 16th Street line comes often enough that riders can expect to just walk up to a stop at any time of day and never have to wait very long for a bus. WMATA’s map isn’t showing the more important piece of information.

Incidentally, Salt Lake City has a very impressive transit system for a city of its size. It’s the 50th largest metropolitan area in the US, with a regional population equivalent to Birmingham, AL and Rochester, NY. It is smaller than Richmond, VA, and *much* smaller than the Norfolk region. And yet they have a 35-mile light rail system, a 44-mile commuter rail line, bus priority routes, and a modern streetcar under construction. It is probably the most impressive small city network in the country.

Thanks to Richard Layman for bringing attention to this.

March 19th, 2012 | Permalink
Tags: bus, transportation



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