Many transit users are liable to make use of route-specific schedules. Most of these pamphlets will have a map of the route, time table of select stops, and basic information about using public transit. While the overall transit maps receive the lion share of attention, I believe that the average transit user pays more attention to the pamphlets. What can we do to make them better? Today I want to focus on the map portion of the pamphlet.
COTA has bus service which is split into three different
types of routes. Local routes (blue
lines) all go through downtown. Crosstown
routes (green lines) focus on our north and east sides of town and some run
through Ohio State University which is about 3 miles north of downtown. Express routes (red lines) are commuter
services which only run in the morning and evening with limited stops.
You can also see an interactive
unofficial COTA map at my website.

First, it’s good to see what other transit agencies do. A
random sampling of bigger/respected transit agencies reveals:
·
MBTA (Boston) – The
map includes all routes but accents the selected route with roads shown.
·
CTA (Chicago) – The map
includes only the line with transfers for Amtrak/Metra without roads shown although
it’s slightly confusing.
·
WMATA (DC) – The map includes
the route with transfers to the Metro with basic roads shown.
·
TriMet
(Portland) – The map
includes the route with transfer route numbers along with transfer roads shown.
The CTA and WMATA methods are similar in that they promote
rail usage. I’m not convinced that either agency benefits with this model as
frequent buses should be promoted as much as frequent rail lines. I like the TriMet approach because it’s simple yet conveys route information. The MBTA method
is good but it takes more room to show the map. It could be too much
information for the COTA cutout.
I apologize for the hand drawn routes but you can see an interactive map Google Fusion Table here for a better picture of the routes. Regardless, is one method better than another? Would a complete map such as MBTA be worthwhile? Would the route transfer numbers be sufficient? Also, frequency hasn’t been investigated. Should it be dealt with in-text, with weighted lines, or not included at all?
I apologize for the hand drawn routes but you can see an interactive map Google Fusion Table here for a better picture of the routes. Regardless, is one method better than another? Would a complete map such as MBTA be worthwhile? Would the route transfer numbers be sufficient? Also, frequency hasn’t been investigated. Should it be dealt with in-text, with weighted lines, or not included at all?
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