It’s six months until the start of the London Olympics and the city is preparing to welcome a flood of visitors with up to three million extra journeys anticipated on peak days. Whether you intend to go to an event of if you want to avoid the busiest areas, you will need to plan your journeys efficiently. Over the coming weeks we will provide hints and tips for travelling around the city as well as flagging up other things that are going on.

The Olympic Park
The main venue for the Games is the Olympic Park in Stratford. The Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Centre, Velodrome are all here along with arenas for basketball, handball, water polo and hockey.

The recommended stations to use are: Stratford, for the Jubilee and Central lines, London Overground and the DLR; Stratford International for the DLR and National Rail services including the Javelin service from St Pancras; and West Ham for the District and Hammersmith & City lines.

In addition to these, there are a number of other stations nearby that may be worth using to avoid the busier areas. Hackney Wick, Pudding Mill Lane, Leyton, Stratford High Street and Abbey Road are all less than 15 minutes walk away from the Park although we will keep checking to make sure there are no restrictions planned for these stations.

All stations are in Zone 3 except Hackney Wick and Pudding Mill Lane which are in Zone 2 making it slightly cheaper to travel to them from central London.

A Room for London
At first glance it looks like a boat that has been washed onto the roof of the Queen Elisabeth Hall on the South Bank. It is actually a one-bedroom installation, built by Living Architecture and designed by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with the artist Fiona Banner, and will stay on top of the roof throughout 2012.

All nights are now booked up but you can still have a chance of staying there by entering the Ideas for London competition, see here for more details: aroomforlondon.co.uk

Nearest stations are Embankment (Bakerloo, Northern, District and Circle lines) and Waterloo (Bakerloo, Northern and Jubilee lines) as well as Embankment Pier for River Bus services.

Coverage and usage
The latest issue of Intersection magazine contains an article on the London Tubemap, copies are available from here: www.intersectionmagazine.com

Also, the University of Cambridge Library has bought a couple of posters for their collection.

The Design Biennale in Brno, Czech Republic got in touch to suggest we enter the map into their design competition. Both the London Tubemap and the Paris Metro map have been submitted so we’ll let you know if anything comes of that. The London Tubemap has also been entered in the D&AD Awards.

Metro map
Congratulations to Antoine Raby whose new version of the Paris Metro map proved most popular in the Facebook vote. It’s interesting to note the amount of surface detail included on the map which has a very organic approach to representing the lines. Our map, designed by Mark Noad, came sixth, we’ll make this available to download from the London Tubemap site in the near future.

Fast Company’s second article has caused a lot of people to fret over whether this (or Beck’s version) is a map or a diagram. In many ways, this semantic debate is a bit of a distraction. What’s more important than design industry pedantry is what the user will be looking for to help them navigate an unfamiliar city. In most cases when your average man in the street (or on the tube) is looking for something to help them travel from A to B they will be thinking of a map of some sort whether this is the ‘correct’ term or not.

It could also be argued that a map is a very particular type of diagram and the term used by Claire Dobbin in the Independent article, ‘diagrammatic map’ is a suitable compromise. But, as a friend of mine pointed out, you don’t find treasure in a diagram!

There was a good article in Monday’s Independent which used the debate around the map as a starting point for a more general discussion on mapping transport systems: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/rethinking-the-tube-map-a-design-for-strife-2337609.html

What’s interesting is reading through the comments which are a good reflection of the overall feedback we’ve been receiving. There seem to be three main lines of thought against this map which can be summarised as: it’s ugly; if it ain’t broke don’t fix it; and you don’t need to be geographically accurate when you are underground. I have no problem with criticism, it helps make a better map, but there are a few points that need to be made in response to these comments which will hopefully add to the debate.

The relative aesthetic qualities of the two maps is an interesting one. There have been as many comments for – ‘beautiful’, ‘very sexy’, ‘ This may be the best piece of design I’ve ever seen’ – as there have against – ‘an ugly waste of time’, ‘looks like it’s been dropped’, and ‘aesthetically frightful’ (the most eloquent so far thanks to Mark Gatiss). Maybe aesthetics should have been higher up my priority list when designing it but it really was about finding the clearest solution as was Beck’s original which is equally ugly and beautiful in its own way.

It ain’t broke? As reported previously, I am a fan of Beck’s original map and in no way claim to have produced something that is better than his but the current version does not come up to his high standards. Those that defend the current map in Harry Beck’s name are really not looking at it carefully enough; there is room for wholesale improvement within those design parameters. The problem with anyone independent trying to improve it is that they would be unlikely to be able to publish it because of TfL’s copyright enforcement. And those responsible for the current map don’t seem to understand or care about the rigour and quality Beck applied during the 30 years he was responsible for the map.

As for not needing geography underground, that is probably true. But recent additions to the system, London Overground (the clue’s in the name), Docklands Light Railway, and Croydon Tramlink are all on the surface. In 1931 (Beck’s original) less than half the system was underground anyway; the proportion is much less now. I am working on a map of the National Rail Oystercard services to add at a later date, nearly all of which are above ground. But, if anything, the geographical inaccuracies are even worst than the underground map; check out the relative positions of Grays and Erith against an atlas for a good example.

One other point that keeps coming up is best summarised in a post by a stray Daily Mail reader who somehow found their way to the Independent site: ‘I’m astonished that public money is being wasted on this ridiculous project to appeasing a few semi-literate visitors’. Well, I can assure ‘Bombaybred’ that no public money was harmed in the making of this map, it has been funded entirely from my own pocket and the goodwill of some of my friends. This map is not official and it is not going to replace the official version, it is simply an alternative so people can choose which they prefer.

There have been two articles about Tubemap on the Fast Company blog in the last few days, both by John Pavlus. The first (http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664662/the-london-tube-map-redesigned-for-a-multiscreen-world) generated some interesting comments so John posted a second (http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664692/is-the-london-tube-map-really-a-map-or-a-diagram-does-it-matter) which generated even more!

The debate about the meaning and purpose of design is an important one, in particular the relationship between the ‘product’ and the user and how a graphic (map/diagram/whatever) can help/hinder someone in their decisions. Future updates of the map will add to this debate as we explore ways to access more information through the website and app.

Your thoughts and comments are valuable in this process, let me know what you think.

We lodged the first version of the app with iTunes for approval at the same time as the site went live. Within a week, they contacted us to say they were considering promoting it on the App Store and could we provide them with all the additional graphics they would need. They then rejected the app!

After much to-ing and fro-ing we eventually were told that the app ‘did not do enough’ even though there are apps currently available for the standard version of the map that do far less. So, the bottom line is that we are going to jump straight to the second stage version of the app which will have the additional information and layer filters that we plan for the website. Hopefully Apple will deem that acceptable for their illustrious App Store!

In the meantime, the Android app is coming up fast on the rails and should be ready in the next few weeks.

I must thank my app developer Jim (www.operandi.co.uk) for his infinite patience in dealing with the Apple review process. Any conspiracy theorists who would like to discuss this further please contact me via the email link.

My summer break is over and it’s time to update you on latest developments.

Plans for the next version of the website are progressing well and it should be live around the end of August. It will contain more information in different layers so you will be able to see: the fare zones; river bus services; which stations have disabled access; journey times between stations; street-level walking links between selected stations. We are working on the National Rail Oystercard services as well but this will take a little longer.

The shop should be up and running by then too with A3 and A4 leaflets and a B1 size poster available to buy.

We are in discussions with several organisations about licensing the use of the map, full details as and when they go live. And we already have the first commercial use in place. The IBIS Hotel in Docklands now has a large-scale print on the wall of their reception, many thanks to the manager there Michael Böhler for his interest in our project.

We’ve uploaded a revised version of the map correcting a couple of small errors and incorporating some comments and suggestions. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

There was a surge in tweets today which seems to have been caused by an article on the Economist blog.

Other good links are the addition to Wikipedia (thanks to whoever posted it) and an article on randomwire.

There’s been a fair amount of media coverage for the map, links as follows:
uk.news.yahoo.com
www.rail.co
www.lovehatetravel.co.uk
www.designtaxi.com
www.londonist.com
uk.reuters.com

I was also interviewed by Dominic King for his drivetime show on BBC Radio Kent.

Best tweet to date came from TfFAil:
Attractive, innovative, and incredibly easy to use. We condemn it wholeheartedly.

I want to know your top tips for using the London Underground network, for example:
• where to interchange and where not to;
• your favourite walking links;
• where National Rail is quicker or better;
• what stations are good for dogs (ie no escalators);
• interesting features, art, architecture or even hanging baskets;
• which carriage is nearest the exit; or
• anything else you can think of that will help make using the system a bit easier.

If you have a disability, tell me what you need to know, what works well or badly with the current maps.

My top tip is NEVER change at Green Park, you’ll be walking for miles!