One map for 212 stops
Four operators, four maps and three languages became one network that a visitor can read in ten seconds. Wrong-platform reports fell by 38% in the first year.
- Client
- Northline Transit Authority
- Year
- 2025
- Scope
- Network map, signage, typeface
- Team
- 6 people, 2 studios
- Duration
- 38 weeks
Four maps that disagreed
Northline grew by merging four regional operators. Each kept its own map, its own colors and its own name for the same interchange.
At Sentrum, the busiest station, a rider changing from the harbor line to the airport line passed signs in three visual styles and saw the same platform called "B", "2" and "Harbor East". Staff answered the same question about forty times an hour.
The brief asked for a new map. We argued for a smaller job first: count what people actually do at the six worst interchanges, then decide what the map has to carry.
- Interchanges
- 6 surveyed
- Journeys
- 1,900 timed
- Names per stop
- Up to 3
38 weeks, five phases
Phases overlap where the tests fed the build.
- 01
Survey
Timed journeys, a photo inventory of 1,140 existing signs and interviews with 22 station staff.
Weeks 1 to 44 wk - 02
Network diagram
One name per stop, one color per line, every line at 45 or 90 degrees. Eleven drafts.
Weeks 5 to 128 wk - 03
Sign family
37 sign types from platform totems to floor arrows, in a typeface drawn for 30-meter reading.
Weeks 9 to 1810 wk - 04
Field tests
Full-size prototypes at Sentrum for nine weeks, tested with 340 first-time visitors.
Weeks 17 to 259 wk - 05
Rollout and hand-over
Sign schedules for 212 stops, the production files and a 48-page rationale for Northline's team.
Weeks 26 to 3813 wk
The system, counted
- Stops
- 212
- Lines
- 14
- Sign types
- 37
- Signs made
- 4,860
- Languages
- Norwegian, English, Sami
- Typeface
- Northline Sans, 2 weights
Every sign is generated from one schedule file, so a renamed stop changes everywhere at once.
What changed in the first year
Both figures compare calendar 2024 with 2025.
38%
10s
Credits
- Design direction
- Ingrid Halden
- Wayfinding
- Maren OkaforLea Sandvik
- Typeface
- Jonas Aalto
- Sign schedule software
- Pieter VosSanne de Wit
- Field research
- Amira HaddadLea Sandvik
- Northline team
- Arne DahlYusra BenaliKari Moen
Have four maps that disagree?
Most wayfinding projects start with a three-week audit: we count, we photograph, and we tell you what to fix first.