Visitors to Sydney using public transport already have plenty to be baffled by – a bewildering array of ticket types, bus fares organised by confusing sections and new transport signs that replace pictograms with letters.
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But now there is a fresh challenge – a train map that public transport advocates and experts warn is confusing and potentially misleading.
A tourist trying to get from, say, Newtown to Sydney Airport by train might assume they can get there in a single trip. The new map shows a continuous green loop connecting the inner west station with the airport.
But, as train-savvy locals know, the fastest way to catch a train from Newtown to the Domestic or International Stations is to change at Central.*
In Melbourne this week the state government released new versions of that city's train map, which give every train line its own colour so that it is more clear when people have to change trains.
But the redesigned Sydney maps do the exact opposite – they remove colours.
Rolf Bergmaier, a transport consultant who has designed public transport maps for cities through Europe and Asia, said maps needed to show passengers how to make a direct connection between two points, or, if that is not possible, where to interchange to travel between those two points.
Dr Bergmaier said the new Sydney Trains map did neither.
The new train maps also remove Sydney's light rail line which, after its recent extension, now includes a direct interchange with Dulwich Hill station.
"Maps should always be designed from the point of view of passengers, particularly occasional passengers such as tourists, who are more likely to need help to get where they're going," said Daniel Bowen, a Victorian public transport advocate.
As well as removing the purple Inner West line, the new rail maps also remove the red Northern line and the light blue South line. This makes it look – incorrectly – as though all Macquarie Park trains travel directly to Penrith.
Sydney's light rail line also has its own new map, which does not show connections to other public transport services.
In Melbourne, Public Transport Victoria cited the need to give clear instructions on where to interchange as the reason extra colours were introduced onto the city's rail map.
A spokesman for Transport for NSW said the design of Sydney's new maps was based on customer research that said people wanted "maps to be more visible and easier to understand while they are travelling on the network".
"Network maps are just one of the methods customers use to navigate the system, with more customers now using tools such as transportnsw.info, real time apps and Google Transit," the spokesman said.
Earlier, a survey by the Design Institute of Australia showed 90 per cent of respondents were opposed to replacing pictures of trains, buses and ferries with letters T, B and F.
* Correction: An earlier version of this story said it was not possible to catch one train continuously from Newtown to the Domestic or International stations.
