Need help understanding the DLR Routes

You'd be better off not including the Roundel (in any colours!) as that is indeed protected by TfL.

The arrows of indecision should be fine, as is used on just about everything and anything to do with National Rail.

Any chance of an iOS version? It looks great so far.

As to the DLR, it appears there are several routes. Tower Gateway to Beckton, Bank to Woolwich Arsenal, Bank to Lewisham, Stratford to Lewisham, Stratford International to Beckton and Stratford International to Woolwich Arsenal. That's basically how the routes work, with lots of crossover points inbetween. I would break the routes down based on something simple, like termini. Individual maps for each route.

The data TfL provides, include roundels you are supposed to use, so I think those are ok, but I have sent samples to TfL and if there are any issues, they will get back to me.

Talking about the DLR, I am unsure of the best way to handle the crossover points. With the Overground routes, where it crosses over I have indicated that, but with so many routes on the DLR, the way I have handled it previously, is not ideal.

Example of Overground Crossover...

The problem is, there would be like 4 or 5 lines of text below, and there must be a better way to do it.

Is it possible to group some of these routes together into single route maps, and if so, which routes are more logical to group together.

The full vertical and horizontal DLR diagrams are to dense to use on a small screen, but doing each of the individual 6 routes, may not make sense.

I need to group some of these together, but which would make sense together.

Thanks for that correction. It gets tricky working on so many of these, with only google and flickr images, and my own photos to go on.

I must say that your images posted feel modern, in a similar way to the London Midland livery. I like your idea of having a line of each colour next to each station to indicate interchanges with that line, although it does rely on you knowing the colours of other lines in your system.

As for different routes in the same line interchanging, this is difficult. Is this perhaps why the Hammersmith Branch of the Metropolitan Line became the Hammersmith & City Line?

Perhaps the DLR has come sufficiently far that it is now a network with its own lines, shown in railway (=) style rather than just one big combine?

This is out in our territory, and we often have to give advice to our visitors to get around the DLR.

This is correct for the basic service. However the DLR does switch things around to suit. The only information given is the final destination of the next train, so when an unusual one appears it does depend on you knowing your geography and the various stations along the routes.

The Stratford to Lewisham route nowadays turns round almost all the time at Canary Wharf, where you have to change to continue on south. I understand there are a few trains that continue on to Lewisham in rush hours but in daily usage I can't recall seeing one recently.

The Beckton line is regularly augmented at weekends by a shuttle train between Canning Town and Prince Regent, to serve the Excel exhibition centre. Likewise the Woolwich line has extra rush hour shuttles between Woolwich and Blackwall. It remains to be seen if these are absorbed when the line from Canning Town to Stratford opens soon.

At weekends, if one or another of the main legs of the system is closed, other combinations are put together. Thus if the line west from Canary Wharf to Tower Gateway and Bank is closed for the weekend, you get Beckton to Lewisham, or Woolwich to Lewisham trains. Although there is publicity about the actual closure, these rearrangements always come as undocumented surprises.

Good luck with the App!

Ok so I was right, there are 6 routes.

Now I know I can combine the *Bank - Lewisham* & *Stratford - Lewisham* routes into one diagram easily.

Are there any other combinations I can make which would make sense?

Also I have set things up so I generally have two lines for station names, and two lines of accompanying text. Some of those crossover interchanges would break that layout, so I would like to avoid that or find an alternative way to represent that.


Oh and we will include a help button which will display the coloured strip, along with the service name, and the other icons, with their explanations.

The DLR is a bit different to the underground lines and overground routes, with things like trains changing at canary wharf and so forth. Rather than stick with the 6 routes, I thought it may make sense to try to take into account some of the quirks that you all may have experienced.

I think its safe to say there will be some aficionados here who may have some good suggestions.

Most of the quirks are simply short workings of one or other of the six you have listed. (although Stratford - Lewisham might be better considered a peak hour extension of the regular Stratford- Canary Wharf service). Covering the one-off splicing of part routes which happens because of engineering work (such as Woolwich-Poplar-Lewisham is a bit ambitious - like trying to show the odd Wimbleware which gets to Baker Street.

The only station to serve four routes is Canning Town.

Colour coding might help. (Indeed the original 11-car system used colours to differentiate Startford and Tower Gateway trains) Remember that until 1949 the routes now shown on the Tube Map as orange, yellow, pink, purple and green were all shown as undifferentiated green.
Given the degree of shared track, route numbers might be helpful. For ease of memorisation, routes sharing sections should have consecutive numbers, or some other easily memorable mnemonic like multiples of 3

1. Stratford - Lewisham
2. Bank - Lewisham
3. Bank - Woolwich
4. TG-Beckton
5. Stratford Int - Beckton
6. Stratford Int - Woolwich

Thus:
the isle of Dogs and Lewisham route is routes 1 and 2
routes 2,3,4 serve Westferry to Shadwell,
Bank is routes 2 and 3
Poplar to Canning town section is routes 3 and 4
beckton branch is routes 4 and 5
woolwich branch is routes 3 and 6
The Canning town - Stratford Unintenional branch is routes 5 and 6

Ok here is the *Bank - Lewisham* and *Lewisham - Stratford* routes in one diagram. Is there anything that seems like its missing?

Shadwell could do with a note that you can change there for DLR trains to Tower Gateway, but other than that I agree with Charlie.

Looks great so far! Apart from that I would just reiterate the slight mistake of Stratford International being on the same line as Lewisham - Stratford.

I was just wondering why you have put 'DLR trains to Beckton and Woolwich Arsenal'? It's impossible to get a direct train from Stratford to Beckton and Woolwich Arsenal ;D

Also just to suggest;

Move the 'DLR trains to...' from Bank to Westferry,
At Shadwell, put down 'DLR trains to Tower Gateway'

Ditto an Android version?

Stratford to Lewisham goes via Poplar.

www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/dlr-route-map.pdf

The reason the official DLR map does not include interchange at Westferry for services to Beckton/Stratford/Woolwich Arsenal is probably because the map includes every route, whereas this right here is an individual route.

And if I knew what you mean by rhyme and whim, I might be able to answer ;D