Tube topographer
- Source: Global Times
- [12:51 May 10 2010]
- Comments
How do you get such accurate information for the website? Is it provided by official sources? Amateurs? Or did you end up riding around with a stopwatch?
Some of the information I obtain from official websites, other informa-tion comes from forums such as Metrofans or Ditiezu. Some has indeed come from hours spent riding metros with a stopwatch! In particular, getting accurate timings for transfers is hard to find, and usually requires manual timing. Last year I visited every Shanghai Metro station (147 at that time) in one day in a little over 10 hours. I'm going to try and repeat the feat this year, though with all the new lines, it's going to be tough!
How did you decide to expand from Shanghai to cover other cities?
It was mainly due to hundreds of emails asking "When will you do a map for X?" More seriously, I knew that the lessons I had learned in building a Shanghai map were equally applicable for other cities in Asia, particularly those with rapidly growing subway networks and a need for multilingual interactive maps.
What kind of difficulties do you run into with the website?
The rapid expansion of the networks in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai has led to very frequent updates on the maps. I've made 10 updates to the iPhone version of our Explore Shanghai map this year alone. Running a multilingual site - all information is in English and Chinese - can also be a challenge, particularly when you're not that adept with one of the languages. Visitors to the site are immensely helpful in making suggestions, or rapidly pointing out when I've made a mistake.
One thing that stands out about your website is the lack of advertising. How do you keep it running?
I have a full-time job at ReignDesign and they've been very flexible about allowing me to pursue my own interests. ExploreMetro and the iPhone apps are still a labor of love for me; I'm passionate about providing the best user experience rather than trying to extract as much money as possible from the sites. I don't want to spoil the experience on the sites with poorly thought out ads. Recently, the launch of our iPhone apps (available for $1 each) has provided an extra source of revenue for ExploreMetro.
You have a new map of the Tokyo Subway coming online this year; do you have future plans for expansion?
My plan for world domination is, of course, a secret, but my next target cities are Seoul and Taipei. There are also scores of first and second tier cities in China that are currently building metros, so I think I'm going to be busy.
