Abstract
Abstract. This study represents the first stage of an investigation into understanding the nature of different approaches to mapping bus routes and bus network, and how they may best be applied in different public transport situations. In many cities, bus services represent an important facet of easing traffic congestion and reducing pollution. However, with the entrenched car culture in many countries, persuading people to change their mode of transport is a major challenge. To promote this modal shift, people need to know what services are available and where (and when) they go. Bus service maps provide an invaluable element of providing suitable public transport information, but are often overlooked by transport planners, and are under-researched by cartographers. The method here consists of the creation of a map evaluation form and performing assessment of published bus networks maps. The analyses were completed by a combination of quantitative and qualitative data analysis of various aspects of cartographic design and classification. This paper focuses on the resulting classification, which is illustrated by a series of examples. This classification will facilitate more in depth investigations into the details of cartographic design for such maps and help direct areas for user evaluation.
Highlights
Bus maps play an important role in portraying bus routes and other information for public transport users
It is important to understand the current cartographic representation variations used in bus maps
In case of the bus map that shares with the other transportation modes, the cartographers often use colour as the feature to single out the bus services
Summary
Bus maps play an important role in portraying bus routes and other information for public transport users. There is no limitation on the maps’ published date as the authors seek to find the variation in bus map design over the time. The bus routes are drawn to follow the original shape of natural and man-made features on the base map without any significant distortion and change of line shape. These geographically correct maps have been the most popular choice in designing bus map in the past especially before the year 2000. More than half of bus map in this sample are some form of schematic, with the majority published after the year 2000
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