Clive Page wrote:
In article ,
Morton writes

I may be wrong but I think London Underground is extremely fool proof. As
long as people can distinguish North from South, East from West. LUL make
the signage 'really ****ing obvious'.


I don't entirely agree, especially with the Circle Line. Not long ago I
arrived at Liverpool St somewhat tired, and getting down to the Circle
Line saw that the directions were marked as "Eastbound" and "Westbound"
and was momentarily confused. Most tube maps show Liverpool St as the
extreme eastern end, with the line running north-south, so how is the
poor foreigner to work out which way is clockwise and which
anti-clockwise? If only they used those terms all every Circle Line
station all would be much clearer.

Another case: take the Northern Line northbound from Kings Cross one
stop, switch to the Victoria Line and take it one stop again northbound:
where do you end up? Back at Kings Cross.

Also I recall seeing several stations where the two opposite directions
are called "Westbound" and "Northbound". There may be good reasons for
these, but they are guaranteed to confuse. The Paris system of naming
directions by the terminal stations isn't at all bad, in my opinion.

At least people have a general idea of the direction they're travelling
in (e.g. if you're in west London, you know east goes towards the
centre). Infrequent users don't have a clue what terminal station they
should be heading towards, as it has no relevance to their journey (if
you're travelling from Heathrow to central London, do you care that your
train is going to Cockfosters?).

The line diagrams on the platforms are invaluable for the user who isn't
sure which direction they want.

The only way I can think of making it more intuitive is to use
"citybound", or perhaps to highlight Zone 1 stations on the line
diagrams. Then again, using citybound would probably add new confusion,
and it would only work for non-central stations.

Some of the Circle line signs do leave a lot to be desired.


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London