A New Map For London? (1)

Roger French Gives Good Advice

On his Bus and Train User blog, Roger recently reported on a visit he made to Transport for London at their posh and huge HQ Palestra House. They have another big lump of office space at Stratford which does sometimes make you wonder what they do all day. Much of the operation of the buses and trains is contracted out, so most of the employees are doing policy, planning and bean counting. Seems a lot, even for London!

For the record, Palestra House is opposite Southwark Underground Station ...

... which tweaked a thought in the fbb addlement of a brain; namely that ...

... modern Underground stations don't tell you what line they are on. They should, surely? In this case it is the Jubilee Line (the silvery grey one!)

Anyway, Uncle Roger was summoned on high to advise on how Transport for London could encourage more passengers to use the buses - and in so doing, make some inroads into the huge subsidy that London taxpayers generously (?) provide for declining reliability, reduced frequencies, increased fares and a lack of good publicity.

Roger canvassed the twitterati by way of support for what all of us already know; namely that the franchising system in London is nowhere near as good as the metropolitan Mayors seem to think it is. More frequency reductions have just come in, for example, from every 8 minutes (just about "turn up and go") to every 12 ("so don't turn up at all!").

It turned out the project being examined is whether contracted bus companies running TfL’s routes can be given incentives to grow revenue and improve the passenger experience and if so how. This of course is a tricky one as the whole basis of TfL’s franchise model is that it’s one simple utilitarian, homogenised network with every bus painted red; every fare a flat fare, every bus route having buses running the full length from Origin A to Destination B, no recognition of any other operators network tickets at the fringes (eg Intalink Explorer in Hertfordshire) etc etc.

Mention is made of a lack of route branding now "de rigueur" in most "active" urban areas. There was a feeble attempt once ...

... and the whole idea just fizzled out.

One item that comes up again and again is the total lack of any usable route maps. Of course Mike Harris produces the old LT network map and it is a tour de force and a work of art, but it is probably too cramped for the average bus user. Something better, more helpful to tourists and residents alike is surely called for.

The second most quoted suggestion in replies inevitably was the lack of a bus map. I’ve written about this many times before and my views are well known. There being nothing even online for buses (and the number of ‘spider maps’ is rapidly diminishing leaving some major areas – eg Wood Green – completely map less). I will continue to make the case. Again, it’s no coincidence the most successful provincial bus companies who are growing the market all produce bus maps. They just wouldn’t conceive of not doing so.

Which brings fbb back to Paris.

The Return Of An Old Parisian Friend

Available on line is a series of maps covering the whole of urban Paris and its "middle suburbs". fbb has used extracts to illustrate his recent Metro "Prolongement" blogs. But as the old man thinks about London, it is worth looking at these excellent productions in more detail.

To understand how they work, it is worth remembering that Paris has no company names - it is all state owned in one form or another - and no catchy route names like "Bakerloo " or a line called "Circle" which isn't. Generally, after the untimely death of Network SouthEast, we have national rail lines in the UK specified by operator (c2c) or tradition (Thameslink) and often not at all.

Paris offers FOUR travel modes.

Metro, 14 lines shown with a letter "M"; Trams with a little tram icon and the letter T; RER with its three letter logo and lines lettered A to E; and buses with route numbers in coloured boxes.  Non RER train services have a little train icon, and all these routes have letter codes to match the principle of the RER. 

In each case these are referred to by their ultimate destination as in the map edge selection above. This stems from the very ancient tradition of defining Metro routes by using the word "Direction".

So that is how they do it. fbb fondly remembers Mr Gregor (classics teacher covering for an absentee teacher) in form 1T at Northampton Grammar School (fbb was 10) explaining this to a bemused class that was generally unlikely ever to want to use the Metro. fbb did really, really want to, but had to wait 45 years before putting the knowledge he gained then into practice!

The four modes are displayed differently on these maps.

Here we have Metro (e.g. our old friend Line 11) in thick lines; tram lines are slightly thinner with a contrasting centre line (T3) and buses with finer lines. All bus stops are shown plus major interchanges between Metro, tram, bus and rail.

Behind it all is a simplified street map with lots of helpful names and a range of little graphics to tell you what is going on and where.

But, despite their excellence, an fbb mantra does come in to play.

You can either be comprehensive OR comprehensible but NOT both.

Sometimes, showing everything with near geographical accuracy becomes self-defeating. 

Look at this lot!

On the map above, a slightly different style is used. Bus routes are black on white with a coloured border; whereas elsewhere the bus routes are on colored rectangles.

So fbb got to thinking, "Would it be possible to produce something similar for London?"

The implications are horrific - London is much much bigger even than "Greater" Paris and there are lots more bus routes!

But, never known for shrinking from danger, fbb is going to explore the implications.

The results will be in the form of a occasional blog diary but, please be aware, the process is long term and the first stages are only exploratory.

But the very first stages in the process will be revealed to an expectant blog readership tomorrow.

Don't get too excited.

 Next London map blog : Friday 8th April