Tom Anderson wrote:
On 1 Sep 2004, Boltar wrote:


"Piccadilly Pilot" wrote in message ...


OK the Piccadilly Line between Holborn and Cockfosters is relabelled
North and South. What about the rest of the line? What about the
Jubillee or the Bakerloo lines, how would you label them?

You label them in whatever direction they're going at that station
according to the map. You don't show it going north on a map then write
"westbound" on all the station signs.


There's also the issue of direction on the map vs direction on the ground,
which aren't always the same; the former corresponds to passengers' mental
model of the network, but it's also subject to change.


Or better yet do what other systems do and label them by their end
stations. Eg towards cockfosters or towards heathrow/uxbridge. This was
also done on the underground years ago. Not sure if it still is these
days.


I find labelling by terminus completely unhelpful -

Having lived in Paris (where they label by terminus) and London
(labelled by quasi-direction), I don't find it unhelpful at all.

unless you know the
network well enough to know the terminus of every line (which most
Londoners probably do, but visitors certainly don't)

But you think they would know that Westminster is East of South
Kensington, or that East Finchley is South of West Finchley?

, it means you need a
map to interpret the signs.

As, indeed, you do now. As Chris Tarrant says, "It's only easy if you
know" (or whatever it is).

And how would it work on lines that branch?
"Towards Edgware, High Barnet and Mill Hill East" is a bit of a mouthful.

Slightly. The fact that LU has more branches than (say) Paris, does make
more termini, though they certainly do this too. "Direction Villejuif
Louis Aragon/Mairie D/Ivry" is one, whilst another is the incredibly
long-winded "Direction Gabriel Peri
Asnieres-Gennevilliers/St-Denis-Universite" (that's only two - they just
have some stupidly long names for some of the termini).

How would it work on the circle line?

Wouldn't clockwise and anticlockwise be blindingly obvious? (That's not
a dig at you - I just can't believe it's not used already.) The current
labelling is chronically bad. If I am at Liverpool Street, I don't have
a CLUE (I've been there enough times - it just is not intuitive enough
for me to remember) which is East and which is West.

I think Liverpool Street would not
be improved by a platform called "Towards Hammersmith, Uxbridge, Amersham,
Chesham (sometimes), Watford and Liverpool Street (via Baker Street before
Tower Hill)".

It wouldn't hurt - at least you would have a clue if you were going to
one of those places - but it's even *more* long-winded than the
terminus-naming of course.

I think this is a matter of taste: i like the system where each direction
has one consistent name over the whole line.

I would too, if it were of any help, but to be honest I don't find it
particularly helpful (except on straightish lines) anyway.

Some of the problems with
this could be overcome by using 'fractional' compass points: the Picc, for
example, could have North-East and South-West directions (although in the
case of Uxbridge etc, this would be some new meaning of the term
'south-west' of which most people were previously not aware).

Well, if we wanted it to be twice as complicated as now, yep :-)

Don't ask me
how you'd name the Jubilee.

Stanmore - Stratford? :-) Easy, innit?

[snip lots of stuff where I'm just *sure* you're taking the ****!]

To be fair, the only downside of terminus-naming, compared to how it
works in Paris is the fact that trains almost always terminate at the
terminus in Paris, whereas in London they can end their journey at
various locations. But at least the passenger is on the right platform
and going in the right direction.

dave

dave

On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Dave Newt wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

On 1 Sep 2004, Boltar wrote:

"Piccadilly Pilot" wrote in message ...

OK the Piccadilly Line between Holborn and Cockfosters is relabelled
North and South. What about the rest of the line? What about the
Jubillee or the Bakerloo lines, how would you label them?

You label them in whatever direction they're going at that station
according to the map. You don't show it going north on a map then
write "westbound" on all the station signs. Or better yet do what
other systems do and label them by their end stations. Eg towards
cockfosters or towards heathrow/uxbridge. This was also done on the
underground years ago. Not sure if it still is these days.

I find labelling by terminus completely unhelpful -

Having lived in Paris (where they label by terminus) and London
(labelled by quasi-direction), I don't find it unhelpful at all.

It very much sounds like people who've used both prefer the Paris system,
so perhaps i'm in the wrong here.

unless you know the network well enough to know the terminus of every
line (which most Londoners probably do, but visitors certainly don't)

But you think they would know that Westminster is East of South
Kensington, or that East Finchley is South of West Finchley?

If they actually knew where those places were, then yes. If they don't
know where they're going, the names of the directions are the least of
their concerns.

, it means you need a map to interpret the signs.

As, indeed, you do now.

You need more geographical knowledge to do it your way than mine - under
my system, people need to know the relative positions of their start and
end stations; under yours, they need to know that, plus the positions of
the termini. I've lived in London for a year now, and i still couldn't
tell you the terminus of every tube line off the top of my head (and i
could only tell you, if you gave me the name, that Stanmore was the
western end of the Jubilee because i know Stratford's at the other end!).

tom

--
I gotta handful of vertebrae and a headful of mad! -- The Doomguy

In article t,
(Dave Newt)
wrote:

Slightly. The fact that LU has more branches than (say) Paris, does
make more termini, though they certainly do this too. "Direction
Villejuif Louis Aragon/Mairie D/Ivry" is one, whilst another is the
incredibly long-winded "Direction Gabriel Peri
Asnieres-Gennevilliers/St-Denis-Universite" (that's only two - they
just have some stupidly long names for some of the termini).

And they keep extending their lines in Paris so the destinations change.
For example I'm sure it was just St Denis when I was more familiar with
the latter case.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
In article t,
(Dave Newt)
wrote:


Slightly. The fact that LU has more branches than (say) Paris, does
make more termini, though they certainly do this too. "Direction
Villejuif Louis Aragon/Mairie D/Ivry" is one, whilst another is the
incredibly long-winded "Direction Gabriel Peri
Asnieres-Gennevilliers/St-Denis-Universite" (that's only two - they
just have some stupidly long names for some of the termini).


And they keep extending their lines in Paris so the destinations change.
For example I'm sure it was just St Denis when I was more familiar with
the latter case.

You might be right in this case (I don't remember), though nobody ever
uses those full names when talking - even the trains say on them simply
"Gabriel Peri" or "St Denis". (Though the last three stops are all
called "St Denis-something", so wouldn't make much difference in this case.)