Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

I personally dislike named transit lines. Leaving aside the way it turns the name into a political football, it makes the design of a consistent, recognisable and flexible signage system extremely difficult.

Transport for London only manages the task because they have one of the world’s leading information design studios working in house, and even then there there are still places where useful information is dropped from signage because the line names are too long to fit in the small space.

My next least favourite naming plan is naming lines after their colour on the system maps (Yes, I don’t like Luas’s line naming). I would hate to have Metro be called “Blue Line” or something equally devoid of information: how does the word “blue” convey the meaning of high-frequency, underground rail to someone looking at a transport diagram to deciding how to get to St Stephen’s Green?

I suspect because the name of lines isn't chosen for the smaller group of people who are new to the system, they're chosen for the larger group of people who use it every day.

If you're a regular commuter, hearing "the blue line train to X is arriving at platform 2" is all you need to know

Everyone is new to the system once, and you can find yourself somewhere in the city where you’ve never taken a train, or you’re in a hurry and need to find your way to the correct platform before the train goes.

The big, lasting problem is signage. Once you need differing amounts of space to indicate different lines, all of your signs need to be bigger, with less information for that area. On top of that, line names are often meaningless and sometimes confusing. The worst kind of line name is the one that’s just a colour: its only benefit is that it’s likely to be a short word, but it conveys no useful information.

The international system, using numbered lines (with or without prefixes) allows wayfinding information to be added to any part of the station because it allows you to make compact signage that is still meaningful. Compare these three in-station direction signs. The first uses letter/number identification only (Berlin - the only good image I could find online is from the signage manual, hence the small size and “Direction St”) , the second uses letters as primary identification with names as additional (Tokyo), and the third (London) uses line names only:

Berlin’s (new) signage is very clear, and very compact. Because every service can be identified using the same amount of space, the destinations can be stacked, or (as in this case), the extra space can be used to tell you line and destination.

The Tokyo system shows how you can migrate from line names to a more rational system. Tokyo used to use line names exclusively, and as someone who understands transit systems, I found it extremely hard to get around based on the old system (Native Tokyoites I was working with also admitted that for parts of the network they didn’t know, they’d usually have to ask a passer-by for help). The new signage system is fantastic by comparison: they uses letters for each line (and within the lines, each station is numbered, so "C" is the Chiyoda line, and "C04" is Omote-sando station). So, on the new signs, although the line names are still present, in two languages, they are secondary. You want to take the Chiyoda line, look for the C and the arrow. Job done.

Finally, look how much space each of the line directions takes up on the London sign, because the line name is the only identifying feature (colour is secondary, but on this sign a mistake makes it very confusing). This sign also illustrates a problem with line-names containing conjunctions: Unless you know, you cannot tell if this is two lines, “(Hammersmith) plus (City, Metropolitan and Circle)” or “(Hammersmith & City) plus (Metropolitan and Circle)”; or three “(Hammersmith & City) plus (Metropolitan) plus (Circle)” - the correct version.

London’s signage is very good, but it’s very good in spite of using named lines, not because. As I said, London uniquely has its own in-house design agency for this stuff, whereas other authorities outsource their signage system designs (both my examples were by local agencies, MetaDesign for Berlin, R.E.I. for Tokyo - their English-language article is here Tokyo Metro Sign Systems , MetaDesign seem to not want to talk about their work on Berlin’s system)

Remember too that tá dhá teanga sa tír seo, so every line name needs an ainm an líne to go with it, taking more space and starting endless arguments about which goes on top and which is bigger, etc., etc. Numbered or letter+number lines sidestep the whole can of worms immediately.

DART has so far skipped the problem by pretending that there is only one “line” with a branch in it, but they’ll soon have to change that. Metro can get away with being “Metro” until the moment a second line is planned, but it’s better to have a system that allows sensible extension, rather than exhausting the limited number of colour-words that everyone can agree to (“red”, “green”, “yellow”, either—but not both—of the two colours called “blue”, “orange”, “grey”, “brown”, ”pink”, “purple”, “black” and “white”)

Maybe if this thread was in Commuting & Transport. "Implementation details" isn't Infrastructure.

How about the ABP transit line as it’s spent so much time there.

I guess the point is that most people are opening this thread to find the latest info on the project, having to scroll through pages and pages of long rambling posts that almost always consist of nothing but personal musings gets annoying.

Though I suppose it's just a symptom of the radio silence from those in charge of the project over the past few years, what else is there to discuss? The fact this infrastructure forum is as active as it is despite essentially nothing being built in the past decade is commendable in itself!

It's not delinquent behaviour or anything like it, but due to the subject at hand it has the potential to totally consume the thread in an endless back and forth since:

1. It's not an issue that's going to have a resolution for several years, so can be debated for a long time to come.
2. Unlike physical infrastructure or operations, the bar for arguing that one name is better than another is very low. There are few monetary, physical, logistical etc. facts you can use to counter someones suggestion for a name.
3. Every type of name is already in use somewhere else, making it easy for a poster to think they're backed up by evidence.
4. It's clear people have very strong opinions on the matter.

So combine all these and you get a repetitive "It should be called A, like they do in B, it's the most logical name" - "Nonsense, it's far more intuitive to it call it Y, like they do in Z" ad nauseum.

https://archive.ph/1m4ZS

Another interview with Sweeney

Biggest problem is we’ll literally grind to a halt if it’s not built, never mind the thoughts of big construction companies.