Hey, TfL, We Like This Idea For The Night Tube Map

By Geoff Marshall Last edited 114 months ago

Last Updated 04 May 2015

Hey, TfL, We Like This Idea For The Night Tube Map

Max Robert’s Night Tube map. Click to embiggen.

Keep a sharp eye out in the tube racks from today onwards, as at any moment the new tube map could appear — with all the added Overground services that are coming on 31 May. Posters have gone up at Overground stations informing us that the new service timetables are available to download now, but when the paper/printed copies appear, we bet they'll have a new tube map inside them too.

While we're talking tube maps, one of the things that we theorised about back in this video is what TfL might do when Night Tube services start in September. Word has got back to us that the pocket sized map may indeed be increased in size so that that Night Tube map can be fitted on the back somewhere.

But what will it look like? The TfL press release, when it was first announced, simply took the standard map and chopped off the bits that weren't going to be 'Nightised'. (What? That's a word!)

Max Roberts, who has designed over 100 alternative tube maps, has come up with his version of what the Night Tube map should look like. He theorises:

"Should a specially reconfigured map be created to show Underground Night services? There are two schools of thought here. On the one hand, there is a suggestion that differently configured maps are confusing to the user, while on the other there is the observation that people seem reasonably resilient to this."

So what Max has designed is a night tube map that shows the service that will be running,  but in a layout that is different to normal, but the 'regular' layout is no longer required when a lot of those lines are not required to be shown on the map.  What do you think?