[PR] Designing an Integrated Map of a Visionary Public Transport Network‏

Victor

Note that this is a design exercise, not a transport panning exercise. the rest of hte website is due to go up over the nest few days.

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INVITATION

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What would Dublin’s public transport system look like, if the shelf full of unimplemented reviews and reports were finally carried out?

Public exhibition of a collaboration between Graphic Design MA graduate Aris Venetikidis on public transport maps and James Leahy presenting a visionary public transport network for Dublin.


12. June - 20. June 2010 daily:
Aris Venetikidis public transport maps and information panels will be on display at this year's NCAD Graduate Exhibition from 12 -20. June 2010. Entrance to the degree show is free and the show is open from 10:00-17:00 on Saturdays, 12:00-17:00 on Sundays and 10:00-20:00 on weekdays. (National College of Art & Design, School of Design Building, Ground Floor, 100 Thomas Street, Dublin 8)


Please circulate to others who may be interested.

Site: http://www.venetikidis.com/aris/Dublin_Transport_MA.html

Cookie_Monster

looks useful but whats with the silly names for bus coridors?

monument

Victor wrote: »

Note that this is a design exercise, not a transport panning exercise. the rest of hte website is due to go up over the nest few days.

It's kind of lose planning, or more so trying to get people thinking about planning and what could be.

James Leahy is advocating BRT lines rather than Metro North or Luas lines. But the suggested routes are more talking points than anything set in stone.

Oliver1985

Looks impressive!

Hungerford

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

looks useful but whats with the silly names for bus coridors?

There's a few mistakes in it too - the maps don't take into account the fact that there will still be railway services from Connolly to Drogheda after the interconnector opens.

I suspect that some Northern Line dart services will terminate in the main trainshed in Connolly once the work is completed.

monument

Hungerford wrote: »

There's a few mistakes in it too - the maps don't take into account the fact that there will still be railway services from Connolly to Drogheda after the interconnector opens.

One map only shows "Rapid Transport Connections" while the other shows those and local buses. It does not attempt to show commuter bus or rail.

Hungerford wrote: »

I suspect that some Northern Line dart services will terminate in the main trainshed in Connolly once the work is completed.

Maybe, but unlikely as there'd be no need for it. The Northern line will have far less capacity for Dart than the underground and the four-tracked line beyond Inchicore.

Sulmac

I have to say, it's very impressive. Imagine if we could get this sort of system, with the Luas extensions, DART Underground and Metro - all with integrated ticketing, signage, branding, maps and real-time information.

We can all dream.

Seriously though, it's an excellent project - the use of tunnels for some of the BRT routes is interesting!

Hungerford

monument wrote: »

Maybe, but unlikely as there'd be no need for it. The Northern line will have far less capacity for Dart than the underground and the four-tracked line beyond Inchicore.

How do you suggest the residents of Dundalk gain access to the city by rail? Plus there isn't really a capacity issue until you reach the loop line - terminating trains in Connolly wouldn't involve crossing over any Dart paths once the interconnector is completed.

monument

Hungerford wrote: »

How do you suggest the residents of Dundalk gain access to the city by rail? Plus there isn't really a capacity issue until you reach the loop line - terminating trains in Connolly wouldn't involve crossing over any Dart paths once the interconnector is completed.

I'd guess people from Dundalk will be still able to get a Commuter train to Connolly (edit: These maps just don't show 'Commuter' rail services). Northern line Darts (the Dart is only due to be extended to Balbriggan) on the other hand will feed into the Dart Underground.

KC61

I think we have to bear in mind that this is a representative concept and of course there may be routes missing.

Either way I have to say it's an excellent piece of work by those concerned!

antoinolachtnai

It is a nice concept and there are some good ideas there. The tunnel under Pearse St/TCD/Nassau St is something that is worth thinking about, although it is tough to find space on the surface to feed this type of tunnel project. If you did build such a tunnel, you would need to have enough routes going through it to give you a bus every minute or two in each direction, to make it worthwhile. The bus gate serves a lot of the same purpose, too My suggestion would be to have more of the BRT's converge on it.

It doesn't exactly reflect how bus transport actually works in practice during peak times. For example, it might seem like a good idea to run an express bus to/from Swords Pavilions via the Airport. It could work well for evenings and Sundays, but at other times it just wouldn't work because of the circuitous route you have to take through the airport and the time you have to spend to wait for customers to load/unload bags. via-Airport services generally also require a premium to be paid, for access to the airport and it would be tricky to avoid passing this premium on to the Swords Pavilions customers.

I am of course saddened (I hope understandably) to see that the designers did not think Ireland's largest town merited a rapid bus connection of its own!

As another example, there is also no direct link from Applewood (an area in North Swords) to the city centre (service goes to west of city centre). I am all for making connections, but this will not work on-peak because you will have customers changing en masse onto services which are already full at peak times. As it happens, the demographics of Applewood probably mean that a disproportionate number of people there work on the eastern side of the city (younger people, working in professional and financial services - I have not checked this, but I think there is something to it).

I suspect this may also be true of other outlying housing estates. You do end up needing a lot of routes going fairly close to the centre.

However, the plan/map has many good things going for it. It is certainly quite a discussion piece.

EDIT: It is worth reading http://www.venetikidis.com/aris/Drafting_a_Bus_Rapid_Transit_network.html before looking at the actual maps.

patrickmooney

Amazing piece of work...I just wish it could be a reality....

patrickbrophy18

Interestingly enough, the last step of development seems to incorporate areas such as Damastown, Sandyford, Stepaside and Kiltiernan, as well as Glenageary and Dalkey DART stations. However, I am aware that this prospect of complete and total integration is purely hypothetical. I do admire the bloke who went to the trouble of preparing these steps. It seems like a map that should have formed the basis of the Deloitte report.

Sulmac

Bump.

I see the project has gotten a mention in today's Irish Times (courtesy of our favourite person, Frank McDonald :pac:).

Capital idea imagines new way forward

Mon, Aug 30, 2010



London Underground’s iconic diagram has inspired an integrated map of Dublin transport routes, writes FRANK McDONALD, Environment Editor

EIGHT YEARS ago, a German-born graphic design student came for the first time to Dublin and was as confused as anyone about how to get around the city by public transport.

There was no handy map of bus and rail services, so it became a “pet project” for Aris Venetikidis (his father is Greek and his mother German) to make one as memorable as the London Underground diagram.

After being rejected initially as a project for his undergraduate degree in graphic design at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), because his tutors thought it would be “too complex”, he got another chance to do it for his master’s degree. And by then, he had years of experience of using public transport in Dublin.

“I found it frustrating and far below international standards,” he says. “I grew up in the Ruhr Valley region in western Germany, where they have great public transport maps. But when I started using graphic design to produce a map for Dublin, I came to the conclusion that the network itself is so complex that it’s almost unmappable.”

So Venetikidis, who is now 31, teamed up with Dublin Institute of Technology postgraduate and transport campaigner James Leahy, who had finished his master’s degree thesis on bus rapid transit as a sustainable – and more affordable – alternative to Luas. Together, they created a “model network”, which he then began to map.

“After spending about a year drawing maps over and over again, going back to square one and improving them, I ended up with a city centre public transport map, based on a simplified network, that has an unprecedented level of detail and clarity – and this has been acknowledged by Dublin Bus, Dublin City Council and others.

“The reaction to my map has been outstandingly, overwhelmingly positive. There’s still a lot of discourse about James Leahy’s model, but it’s clear to me that, without a fundamental simplification of the network, the system will remain confusing to new users and so will any endeavour to create intelligible public transport maps.”

Essentially, the map Venetikidis designed includes all bus services and stops, as well as existing and proposed Luas stops, existing Dart stations and the proposed Dart Underground link between Inchicore and Docklands, with intervening stations at Heuston, Christ Church, St Stephen’s Green, Pearse (Westland Row) and Spencer Dock.

Everything is colour-coded, and the 10 bus rapid transit lines proposed by Leahy are given names such as Beckett, Larkin, Stoker and Yeats.

These are shown on a large format map of the public transport network as a whole, then in detail on a separate map of the inner city area, so people can see exactly where they are going.

“Every stop is on it, because you can’t assume that every new user has a working knowledge of Dublin’s geography,” Venetikidis says. “So even Dubliners invited to a friend’s party, for example – all they would have to do is to identify the nearest stop on the map, which is not something they can do now, and then work out the route they need to take.”

As the iconic London Underground map had shown, “a successful integrated public transport map is the key to motivating people to leave the car and make the switch to a sustainable transport mode. Couple that with a modern network of rapid transit and you have the solution to congested city centre streets and an absent infrastructure.”

Venetikidis is full of admiration for Harry Beck, the London Transport employee who drew the original diagram of its tube network in 1931 that still forms the basis of the map in use today. With its use of colour coding, spatial distortion and clear lines (like his own Dublin diagram), the underground map is the way most people relate to the layout of London.

“I think we’ve reached a point at which the different players involved in planning public transport in Dublin have realised the importance of simplifying the network,” he says.

“I would hope that eventually they will also strive for true integration, including the long-awaited introduction of an integrated ticketing and fare system.”

The map of such an idealised new world order for Dublin transport, designed by Aris Venetikidis, can be downloaded at www.aris.ie

© 2010 The Irish Times

irishdub14

http://www.venetikidis.com/aris/Dublin-Transport_MA_files/DublinRapidNetwork_2.jpg

Wow, what an amazing map! Great Work who ever made it, if only it was all there!!

irishdub14

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munchkin_utd

irishdub14 wrote: »

http://www.venetikidis.com/aris/Dublin-Transport_MA_files/DublinRapidNetwork_2.jpg

Wow, what an amazing map! Great Work who ever made it, if only it was all there!!

indeed.
Not to mention the inclusion of tariff zones that you would have one price for a journey depending on distance travelled, rather than the journey price multiplying up every time you make a change of vehicle/ mode.