travels in space, travels in time

October 27, 2018 10:37 PM

Seven Weeks To Venice: Isochronic Maps. Want to find travel times? 24 hrs of traffic data anywhere? The Shape of Transit in Singapore?

Why Isochrone Maps Are Enjoying A Renaissance
What Is An Isochrone Map?
An isochrone map of travel times from London in 1914, and updated for 2016


Not to be confused with a tautochrone curve

posted by the man of twists and turns (8 comments total)

Isochrones are great!

Transit planner Jarret Walker has done some interesting things using isochrones to help visualize the change in access from transit plans; for example, there are PDFs at the bottom of this page for a proposed change in the Dublin bus service. It's a really intuitive way of illustrating a broad change in access, it seems to me.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:45 PM on October 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

To a first approximation, the fare zones on the London Underground are isochrones (they’re based on distance, rather than time - but let’s assume that all the lines stay fairly straight, the trains on the different lines move at about the same speed, and that the number and frequency of stops is consistent...).

They’re the grey and white bands in the background of the (famously distorted) tube map.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 2:51 AM on October 28, 2018

Some of these are really neat.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:55 AM on October 28, 2018

If there exists an isochronic map of travel times from London in approximately the 1810s with a heavy focus on travel within the British Isles, I would very much like to see it. Ideally before the start of NaNoWriMo.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:47 AM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Topi Tjukanov @tjukanov

2018 remake of my accessibility visualization. Rush hour travel times from my home to everywhere in Helsinki region with different modes of transport:
- Pink = Car
- Yellow = Public transportation
- Green = Bike

Made with #PostGIS + #QGIS
posted by chappell, ambrose at 10:48 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

The Galton isochrone map, showing travel times from London circa 1850, has a lot of interesting details. The blogger at that link touches on a few of them, but what stood out to me was that Iceland is marked as being 10-20 days' travel from London except for a narrow strip of green (under 10 days' travel) along the north and west coast, opposite from the British Isles. And next to it, Greenland is almost entirely brown (over 40 days' travel) except for a slender rainbow of colors along the coast indicating briefer travel times; it would take less time to sail 2500km from London to the Greenland coast than to travel 100km inland.
posted by ardgedee at 11:05 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ooh. Any suggestions for where to learn how to make these?
posted by yueliang at 1:34 PM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

> An isochrone map of travel times from London in 1914, and updated for 2016

Here's both of those maps exactly lined up with each other -- click on the image to flip back and forth instantly. Really shows the distorting effect of airplanes!
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 6:37 PM on October 28, 2018 [4 favorites]