Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Rachel+H+R05

It was interesting to look at the timetables between New York and New Haven, the first one was pretty ambiguous and hard to understand. I can recall trying to figure out the Milwaukee County transit bus schedule when I first moved to Milwaukee, I remember you had to trace your finger down the column to try to find your correct time. Often I would realize that I would be on the weekend schedule when I needed the weekday or the other way around. I have noticed that they have revised the timetable and it has improved but it is still easy to get confused.
Train charts can be somewhat of a feat to understand, especially in a foreign country. In London for instance, I found their system to be extremely easy to understand. All of the different lines are color coded and each stop is clearly marked and you know which direction to go because of the charts that map out the stops in order. When my friend and I were there I think 3 of the lines we needed to use were out of order and we could still find our way to our hostel because of their easy to use system. Looking at the chart from the reading for the railroad map in China, I see a similar pattern with the towns (stops?) spaced out according to their actual location. Even if I could read the language I'm not entirely sure I could navigate with this map. I'm not sure which direction the train goes, are there north/south and east/west trains? Perhaps color coding would help the reader decipher the chart better.

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