TO360 wayfinding signs are designed to help pedestrians navigate the city in an intuitive way, with heads-up maps orientated to face direction of travel, a 5 minute walk circle to encourage walking and illustrated landmark buildings to reinforce a mental picture of the area. 

T-Kartor worked alongside Steer Davies Gleave in the development of a pilot project of 62 signs, which were tested on the public with very encouraging results.  People were happy to see the City taking the initiative to develop a wayfinding system, and felt it would provide a big benefit to the city:
* 13% reduction in walk times for specific journeys
* 33% increase in walking trips and 27% increase in time spent walking in the area
* Over 50% reduction in auto mode share for journeys that start and finish within the area
* Over 50% reduction in people feeling lost

T-Kartor roll out city wayfinding basemap for Toronto

The 2012 Outline Business Case was updated based on the pilot evaluation resulting in an estimated benefit-cost ratio of 3.7:1.  This means that for every dollar invested, almost four dollars are returned through transportation benefits over the 25-year project life cycle (including capital costs and maintenance). 

The study also confirmed that a city-wide GIS database would best serve the future requirements of the City.  This core system will be totally scalable for a large number of end-users and product families, feeding into other systems (such as the PATH underground walking network, cycling network and transit routes) and providing viewers with a way to explore off-street destinations. 

T-Kartor are providing local area maps at all Luas tram stops across Dublin when the new Luas Cross City extension goes live in December.  The passenger transport maps are being provided to Ireland’s National Transport Authority in association with our partners, creative agency Catalysto. 

Our maps will help travellers to find their destination when alighting at the tram stop and improve connectivity with other forms of transport nearby, including rail, bus, cycle and taxi. 

We are producing these for the NTA as part of a system designed to generate affordable maps, using open data, at rail stations across Ireland.  Our online management portal will be used to order and deliver the maps, and can be extended to support asset management with a geographic product overview. 

With the Cross City, Dublin is getting a sought-after extension to the hugely successful Red and Green Lines developed in 2004.  This new line traverses the city centre to join the existing routes, adding 13 central stops, then continues 6 km north to the rail station at Broombridge.  It also connects areas north and south of the River Liffey, acting as an interchange between Luas, Bus, Rail and Taxi modes. 

The Luas network has experienced passenger levels in excess of 34 million per year, and the Cross City extension is expected to increase this figure by another 8 million.  It is also projected to result in 1 million fewer journeys each year by private car. 

T-Kartor creates digital maps for NYC subway displays

New York City MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) are taking a major step towards the future of transport information design with digital screens being installed at 33 newly renovated subway stations. 

T-Kartor were asked to develop a specially designed digital version of the printed local area maps we are creating for all 450 subway stations. 

Optimised for low resolution
This special adaptation is necessary because digital screens, even so-called HD (high definition) screens and televisions have a very low resolution, compared to your laptop or desktop monitor.  This means that smaller features and symbols, or lighter texts are rendered illegible.  The images below illustrate the problem:

T-Kartor carried out a thorough study of fonts, colours and text sizes to achieve increased legibility.  Finally, specially designed graphic files were tested in prototypes of the screens, including a study of the ambient conditions, which will influence colours and contrast. 

The result was a fine, legible map, which a viewer will perceive as identical to the established printed brand and a wealth of expertise gained, which will form valuable input to the success of future interactive products. 

T-Kartor chosen as Small Business Supplier of the Year

Two and a half years into the “World’s Largest” Geospatial Products and Services Contract, together with Harris Corporation, we are proud to have been chosen as Harris’ Small Business Supplier of the Year.  Harris motivates this choice as follows:

“T-Kartor has collaborated with Harris on various Foundation GEOINT Content Management (FGCM) Alpha-Contracting efforts, including A-DO37 and A-DO31, where they contributed valuable insights, feedback and inputs into shaping future technical and schedule requirements for FGCM task orders.  They have confidently stepped in to support the critical efforts for which other subcontractors were unwilling or unable to perform.  In addition to the standard Content Mana gement efforts, T-Kartor has been chosen to support IRAD’s and other peripheral, strategic activities on the FGCM program. 

T-Kartor has been flexible to meet the Harris targets as well as cognizant of the significance of continuous improvement and affordability.  T-Kartor has shown exceptional commitment to the growth of the FGCM franchise, making significant investments into the growth of its business by hiring over ten new staff members.  Without the support of T-Kartor, Harris would have possibly needed to perform the work in house at a greater cost to the company.  Furthermore, they have been involved in the development of software tools that streamline the production of geospatial datasets, such as tools for data thinning necessary for automatically displaying map data at smaller scales and tools for conflation or combining of multiple data features into one single map object.  These many contributions are pivotal to the success of the FGCM task orders and future Harris awards. 

Congratulations on receiving this well deserved award!” 

T-Kartor wins another TfL mapping contract

We are proud to have increased our share of TfL’s cartographic framework.  T-Kartor is now the sole supplier of pedestrian and cycling information products containing mapping from the Legible London Database (which T-Kartor maintain under a separate contract). 

A whole family products are included in this contract:

Local area maps
Highly-detailed geographic local area maps used for various ad-hoc purposes

Legible London mapping panels
These ‘heads-up’ maps are rotated to match the direction of travel and are placed on a number of pedestrian sign types.  Additional information on these signs include street and landmarks indices and directional arrows to nearby neighbourhoods, landmarks or transport nodes. 

Continuing your journey posters and leaflets
Highly-detailed geographic local area maps used at transport nodes such as station exits and bus station hubs.  These maps usually appear with a schematic map of bus or river services.  In some cases they are reproduced as an A4 leaflet. 

Cycle Hire Docking Stations
These maps appear on the cycle hire infrastructure and involve an added technical complexity.  The position of all nearby docking stations are shown on each map, so these maps are created paying consideration to the latest status of all stations within a certain radius. 

We look forward to four more years continuing our excellent relationship with our highly valued customer. 

T-Kartor maps Stockholm

Together with the award-winning design company Familjen Pangea, T-Kartor has completed a project to create new maps for the tram line no 7 to Djurgården.  The map designs are based on experience from our successful projects in London, New York, Birmingham, Houston, Toronto, Dublin and Paris. 

The detailed maps show all points of interest in the neighbourhood and the best ways to find them or complete the journey to your final destination. 

The project also included new maps for the commuter Ferry lines 80, 82 and 89. 

“This is yet more proof of our long-term customer relationships with close cooperation and a continuous development of new projects.  This project really shows the benefit of using a consistent strategy for Mapping a Connected City to support sustainable mobility strategies.  We look forward to supporting Stockholm as it strives towards a Greener Capital. ”Erik Körling, Managing Director T-Kartor Content Management

T-Kartor maps Houston Super Bowl

T-Kartor have developed a pilot mapping system to support the City of Houston and the Super Bowl Host Committee.  The primary focus of the pilot project was to provide Legible Wayfinding for those attending “Super Bowl Live” in Houston’s Discovery Green Park. 

T-Kartor utilized open data sources, City of Houston GIS data and Houston Metro data to produce a public transit focused product to drive traffic from Discovery Green efficiently to the NRG Stadium. 

The product was to focus on conveying walkability around the Houston Downtown area as well as presenting all the differing transit possibilities to those attending the Super Bowl. 

The future for Houston Wayfinding and Public Transit looks bright and we look forward to continued progress following next week’s Big Game.