about

About the map

This is a comprehensive map showing all public transport routes in Greater Melbourne including buses, trains and trams.

It is by far the largest and hardest map project that I've ever done.

All up, it has taken me 14 months and hundreds of hours to put together this project. I am also keeping this up to date regularly.

Why this map?

While PTV does publish local maps for particular areas showing all public transport modes, there is no publicly available equivalent to cover the whole city.

Given that trips are not exclusive to any single mode, I thought that coming up with a map to fill this gap might be useful.

There are also several issues with the PTV local area maps that make them annoying to use for many purposes. These include:

Inconsistent terminus/interchange labelling - some only lable those that terminate (e.g. Caroline Springs) and others list all routes that go through (e.g. Box Hill)

- some only lable those that terminate (e.g. Caroline Springs) and others list all routes that go through (e.g. Box Hill) Major interchanges are very hard to understand - this mainly because they have to cram every single route's exact geography into a tiny space

- this mainly because they have to cram every single route's exact geography into a tiny space Frequency/service span not shown - this makes it hard to work out the best route without having to trawl through timetables or journey planners

- this makes it hard to work out the best route without having to trawl through timetables or journey planners Terminus bubbles list routes reading top to bottom rather than left to right - this might not matter for some people, but it's always made it difficult for me to read given that English is a language written from left to right

- this might not matter for some people, but it's always made it difficult for me to read given that English is a language written from left to right Geographic maps have greatly limited space - this then creates inconsistencies - e.g. forced to abbreviate 'Deer Park' to 'Deer Pk' on PTV map

- this then creates inconsistencies - e.g. forced to abbreviate 'Deer Park' to 'Deer Pk' on PTV map Every route is drawn individually - drawing each route separately is useful if you know the route that you need to take. But if you don't know the route but know roughly where to get to and from, this just makes it confusing.

- drawing each route separately is useful if you know the route that you need to take. But if you don't know the route but know roughly where to get to and from, this just makes it confusing. Separate colours for each route - this means that the palette runs out in areas with a high-density of routes and separate routes have to double up with the same colour (e.g. Hoppers Crossing - dark blue reused which could lead people to think that the 181/498 route is a through route). This, again, makes maps difficult to read (e.g. area around Knox).

As I always say, this is by no means arguing that the PTV maps are useless or that my map is perfect. Both styles of map have advantages and disadvantages. Each is more useful for particular journeys and passengers than others. All that I aim to do with this project is introduce another option for people to use if they wish.

Making the map

This was a long and sometimes painful exercise. The sheer scale of the project meant that any task that might take a couple of hours on a smaller map ended up taking days or weeks to complete on this one.

Before I began, I spent a while thinking about how to organise the map and establish some design rules. In the end, there were quite a few that I tried to stick to as much as possible. But the most important rule for a map like this is to create a clear visual hierarchy.

What this means that is that a user can glance at a map from afar and at least vaguely see where the most important features of the map are located and how they relate to the rest of the elements.

In the case of this map, this consists of major interchanges and railway lines. These are the busiest and often the best-serviced parts of the public transport network, so it's important to highlight them above, say, the route 609 bus (which the PTV map visually treats equally with the Ringwood Line). This is done with line thickness, directness and colour palette.

The first parts of the map that I drew were the railways and CBD so that the rest of the map was built around these key anchors. Then it was areas with grid-like tram and bus routes. These were actually some of the hardest areas to design.

With meandering routes, there is a lot more flexibility to 'iron out' random curves or kinks and make them connect to the rest of the network more logically. A straight route, like the route 246 bus, is virtually impossible to take away from its straight north-south direction.

This freedom from strict geography means a lot of space can be saved and efficiences created. It also allows 'nudges' to be built into the design that aren't possible or are much hard with a geographic map. For example, the bus routes at Laverton Station are slightly offset to suggest to the viewer that they are not through routes.

Finally, there were some areas that took me weeks to design on their own, just because they were so confusing. Endeavour Hills, Middle Brighton, Highpoint and South Morang just about did my head in.

Future plans

Given that routes change all the time, this map will require updates. However, I don't have the time to do this as it happens. There will probably be a time lag of at least a couple of weeks.

For the website itself, there is a roadmap for future improvements. Some of these include:

Main street names across the whole map (v1.1)

Major landmarks and key destinations (v1.2)

Interactive labels (v2.0)

Searchable destinations (v2.0)

Toggleable layers (e.g. bus, train, tram) (v2.1)

I should emphasise that this is a plan only, and I can't guarantee that all of these will be implemented soon, if at all. I want to take a break from this project for a while, as I have other maps to work on in the meantime. There may also be technological constraints that I'm not yet aware of.

If you do have any suggestions for other features or could help me get these implemented, please feel free to get in touch.

Credits and acknowledgements

Thank you to Peter Parker who reviewed an early version of the map and helped me fix errors.

Also a huge thank you to everyone else who let me know about mistakes and suggestions for improvements. In no particular order (and apologies if I missed anyone):