Assignment 10- comments- Sally Chen
Representation of time and space is complex, especially when considering that an individual’s perception of time and space is relative. Public transportation maps are a typical topic, and a large number of transportation maps in the past show what kind of representation is more practical, and which representation will make people feel confused. I associate it with the public transportation map of Boston and use the Red Line as an example. On the map, the distance from Kendall/MIT to Central is the same as the distance from Central to Harvard, but the distance perceived by riders is different - the time required for Kendall-Central is less than the time required for Central- Harvard. For the passengers, the absolute distance between stations does not matter- “distance” is perceived as “time taken for the travel”. I believe that in some public transportation systems, the use of the line length between stations to represent travel time may have been applied. If the pattern is extended to different subway lines and bus routes, and a “map” is generated that is significantly different from the absolute distance. Considering the frequency of public transportation (the function of waiting time) and the volume of people (which affects the likelihood of direct boarding), the map will have a pattern that varies throughout the time of a day.