Redesigning Oslo's transit diagram

In 2017, I made an unofficial transit diagram covering the Oslo region in Norway. Now, five years later, it’s time for a revisit. Let’s take a look at what can be improved and the process of creating a new transit diagram.

SOFTWARE USED:
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro.

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This is my 203rd YouTube video of all-time and the 6th video in 2022.

[leosklein]

As a colorblind person who often mixes up grey and pink, I appreciate that color change

[noyaV_]

The most striking thing out of the redesign is how easy on the eyes it is despite its complexity. 100/100

[eljestLiv]

I was in Oslo today and I used your map to get around. Thanks a lot, great work, I love the design!

[MrFrozenTux]

This looks so good, and the editing is on point too. Living in a city that butchered its transit map to add regional services, I’m very appreciative of the effort you put in to keep the line colors while differentiating modes.

[triforium_t]

Greetings from a fellow transit enthusiast and Norwegian! Let me start off by expressing how impressed I am by your skills and creativity in transit diagram design. It is truly enthusiasts and clever people like yourself we have to thank for spreading knowledge and interest about transit to the common man, and for pushing transit officials to go above and beyond in their planning and design.

Your recent design is without a doubt an improvement from your last one. Nonetheless, I would like to understand the reasoning behind your choice of combining these specific three modes of transport in your comprehensive diagram. At first glance, the obvious answer to that question would be that these three modes are all running on rails. However, I would argue that that is the only similarity between these modes of transport – at least when it comes to Oslo.


In my opinion, the inner parts of the metro (as well as a small part of the central local train service on L1, L2, L3 and L21) share roles with the trams and city buses in functioning as the frequent and reliable network of transport for the city's inhabitants, consisting of lines and branches of lines with a multitude of stops close together. They serve an entirely different different purpose than the trains and outer parts of the metro, in my view.



The bus digression aside, my argument is not that you should combine all these four modes of transit into one – I think that would be an impossible task. My argument is that it would make more sense to design a diagram combining bus, trams and metro lines into one (and maybe even include the ferries and boats). Oslo needs a comprehensive _city_ diagram where all these three modes of transport are combined – buses, trams and central parts of the metro. These three serve different geographical areas of the city, and when travelling from one part of the city to the other – even for shorter distances – one often has to change between the three. A proper city transit diagram combining these quite similar modes would help locals, commuters and tourists alike.

If you are commuting from say Moss or Gjøvik (two separate cities/towns), I'd argue that the need for one single diagram combining local trains (L trains), which run for over 100 kilometres, with tram lines, which run for only up to 20 kilometres, is not present. If I were a long-distance commuter, I'd be much more comfortable with using one diagram for the local trains and the outer parts of the metro to help me get into the city centre (especially regarding Oslo only having one large train station), and then turing to a comprehensive city diagram combining the buses, trams and central metro lines. A commuter's journey to a specific part of the city could then be mentally divided into two parts: The first one would focus on getting from a suburb, village or town into the city, and the second one would focus on figuring out which city bus, tram or metro to take in order to get to the desired part of the city.

Seeing as Oslo city has such a developed bus, tram and inner metro service, with great coverage, loads of stops and high frequency, there is rarely a need to walk more than 200 metres at the most, regardless of where your destination is within the city centre. This is a great feature in a modern city and is one that is deserving diagrams which make the system accessible to all. That is the reason why I think two separate diagrams, where one is regional and one is a comprehensive city based one, is favourable over your current design.

I want to stress once again how impressive I find your skills and creativity in redesigning transit diagrams to be, and also that the diagram in this video already is accessible, functional and all together great. The reason behind my very lengthy comment is merely some ~constructive critique~ (as is the official phrase in proper Norwegian) and maybe to challenge your exceptional skills into creating something even more comprehensive and impressive.

There would clearly be some challenges in creating my suggested city diagram combining the buses, trams and central metro. As well as the extensive city bus service, Ruter also has quite a large-scale regional bus service, serving the local areas around the suburban hubs and towns, which themselves are served by the outer metro and local train lines. Seeing as a number of these regional bus services call at a multitude of stops both inside and outside Oslo proper, this would require some creative design and sacrifice of accuracy, no doubt.

Yet again, this was a great video and a great design! I hope my critique is welcomed and I wish you all the best with your upcoming designs and projects. Maybe we'll see an updated version (or versions in plural form!) of this diagram in the future. ;)


Cheers,
Tord

[iamsamarg]

Love the subtle shade thrown at the London Tube map’s zones. I’m always impressed by TfL’s ability to make a coherent map at all, especially on the London’s Rail & Tube Services map (the National Rail map), it’s the epitome of a spaghetti map

[bonetiredtoo]

I love it that nearly 90 years on, it is still a recognisable derivative of Harry Beck's London Underground map!

[bobertfw]

Super Gracias for doing this in English. I love what you do and appreciate that you expand the knowledge of transit systems for those who come from transit neglected areas like Dallas

[rebel]

whenever i look at the nyc subway's map, i get a headache. whenever i see this map, my headache goes away

[hei]

You are probably the most underrated YouTuber ever

[GamingNachos]

You really have a talent in diagram illustration! Ruter should pay you a fortune for this design, i’ve always missed a complete map showing all rail transport in oslo!

[no-name]

Wow. Loving the super clean editing, clear explanations and of course the map. This is exactly why I subscribed! I really hope the YT algorithm sways in your favor one day.

[hagen]

You know good design when you see it. This is just beautiful, great job!

[adamcoppock]

It's great to see the design thinking with a focus on execution & craft!

[itsazziboi]

It is absolutely awesome that you included which software you used something sadly rare TYSM FOR DOING THAT i literally have been searching for 2 years or smtn for a good software to make metro maps/diagrams

[fardin.s_ali]

You should send this in as a suggestion to Ruter, if you have the possibility to do so. I've lived here my whole life and I've never been a fan of the transit diagrams they use (except for the T-bane-diagram). Your redesign is a huge improvement to the original diagrams, and I'd love to see it being used!

[kristineflunes]

Wow, as a norwegian who uses this system every day, I really like it! You did an incredible job :D Love how all rail lines are represented together, in one map. I'll save the PDF and share it.

[jofresivilla]

This is a great and very clean diagram, hardly at all overloaded. Easy to understand, but at the same time preserving all the complexity of the network. I always like to see diagrams with many, many lines, that you almost get lost with so many lines (including city bus diagrams, which is even crazier) but at the same time trying to be as minimally cluttered as possible.
Maybe the only thing I would say is to reduce the spacing between the lines when they are close together as you end up with a line thickness that ends up being a bit too thick. For the rest, it is very good.

[Shanto]

As a person from Oslo this would blow my mind😲

[phtn]

This is a masterpiece, easy-going and explanation why and how. Making complicated things easy to understand is hard but you did it easy