History and Design of Transit Maps

I have been researching the history and design of the New York City subway maps for a number of years. In 2017-2018 I was doing experimental research at the Universiy of Kent at Canterbury.

Blog

• NYCSubwayMap.org
  A continuing blog on aspects of the historical development of the New York Ciy subway map.
  

Papers and articles

Effect of colour-coding on usability

• Metro Map Colour-Coding: Effect on Usability in Route Tracing (16 pp) by Peter B. Lloyd (University of Kent), Peter Rodgers (University of Kent), Maxwell J Roberts (University of Essex). Presented at Diagrams 2018, Edinburgh, June 2018.
• Diagrammatic Metro Maps: Navigational Problems and their Detection and Remediation (3 pp) by Peter B. Lloyd. Presented in the Graduate Symposium at Diagrams 2018, Edinburgh, June 2018.

History of the New York City subway map

• Why was the Vignelli Map Jettisoned by the MDA?
  presentation given in the Design Encounter series at the Vignelli Center for Design Studies. In this talk, I argue that the Vignelli map was jettisoned not because of a popular rejection by riders but because MTA Marketing wanted a map better suited to 'selling' the subway.
• Diagrammatic Maps of the New York Subway: an Historical Perspective (8 pp)
  Paper presented at the conference Diagrams 2018, Edinburgh, June 2018.
• An historical catalogue of maps of the New York City subway system
  A continuing sub-project to catalogue all published maps of the New York City subway system, focusing principally on the official maps issued by the MTA and its antecedent organisations (IRT, BMT, IND and before them the Rapid Transit Commission).
  
• Vignelli: Transit Maps (RIT Press, 2012)
  This is the first book-length treatment of Massimo Vignelli's contribution to transit maps, focusing chiefly on his 1972 diagrammatic map of the New York City subway system, but also including his prototypes for the Washington Metro and his contribution to the Paris RER map.

Design of subway maps

• From Modernism to Metro Maps: Mondrian, Beck, and Salomon by Peter B. Lloyd (University of Kent), Brief Encounters Vol.1, No. 1 (Feb 2017). DOI dx.doi.org/10.24134/be.v1i1.38.

Software and data

• Files for colour-coding usability study

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