轨道交通线路图是一种广泛应用于交通运输网络的新图形,它在出行中具有不可替代的作用。本文选取上海城市轨道交通线路图中7种有代表性的站点符号表达形式,采用时间统计和定量分析的方法,以站点符号的色彩、线型、尺寸和几何形态等四类要素,对用户测试时视觉搜索速率的影响作了分析。结果表明,对轨道交通体系的熟悉程度越高,信息搜索速率越快;当符号表达形式的相关要素改变时,对上海轨道交通背景概念和换乘体系熟悉的用户所受影响不大;有一定背景知识且对上海轨道交通背景概念和换乘体系一般熟悉的用户,对于彩色、大于线路宽度、双线边框的站点符号,具有较高的信息搜索速率;而对轨道交通完全陌生的用户,在信息搜索时虽然对符合视觉感受的站点符号表达形式具有一定的认知优势,但在各种符号的信息搜索速率上差别并不明显。

Transit maps are widely used diagrams in transportation network, which play important roles in travel, and get a perfect balance among geographical positions and understandable grids. The quality of station symbol design for urban rail-transit maps, which are also represented as schematic maps or called 'tube' maps, directly affects users' efficiency and effectiveness (usually measured by 'time consumption') when they search for information. A better symbol design considering human visual perception can lead to faster information acquirement, as well as to optimization of interacting experience. We selected seven types of representative station symbols of transit maps in Shanghai, and designed a statistical system to compare the information searching time during test tasks on railway station symbols with different colors, sizes, outline types and geometrical forms. Tests are carried out in three kinds of people, including Class S (completely unfamiliar with Shanghai metro system), Class C (commonly knowing about Shanghai metro system), and class V (having a detailed knowledge of Shanghai metro system). Time that they spent on searching for designated information on Shanghai metro system maps with different station symbol styles is recorded. Time distribution curve of all subjects shows that the subjects' familiarity to Shanghai metro system has negatively related with the total mean time-consumption in searching for information. Besides, the symbol placement can affect the allocation of subjects' attention. Moreover, different symbol forms have less impact on the time-consumption of class V. But class C reaches high information searching efficiency when they are tested with double-circle color station symbols, which are also larger than railway line's width. Although class S has certain cognitive superiority on the station symbols close to human perception, the differences of searching efficiency among different symbol faces is not obvious.