Your Road Maps After the War
Page 35
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Why Those Following the Ordnance Survey Style May be in Demand by Heavy-vehicle Drivers
By Francis Jones
NOT. long ago, in the "One Hears—'' feature of this journal, there appeared the crack, " That some, so-called road maps ' are a delusion and a snare." Somebody had been having trouble, evidently. Following this, the next " One Hears—". read: " That, to some people, any map is the ' perfect and absolute blank ' corn. Mended in a. _Lewis Carroll verse." From which sequence one is left Wondering whether the writer drove, or was driven, down the .wrong turning I Be that as it may, those paragraph's started me thinking about the sort of maps that operators and their drivers will be wanting ,after the war. The subject is not unimportant as, with the development .of road transport, the demand for maps will be greater than ever whilst, at the same time, it is aot to be supposed that all the methods whith the cartographers found so satisfactory in the past will prove to be ideal for theluture.
As a preliminary, and by way of warning to all concerned, I would remark that a large proportion of the drivers of the future will have a marked preference for maps produced by the Ordnance Survey.They have been brought-up on them, are accustomed to their style, and appreciate their great merits. Whatever their tastes may have been before, they will ask for genuine 0.5. maps whenthey return to civilian duties, .just as did their predecessors alter 1918.
The requirements for a'road map are, first, that it should he both accurate and adequate. The former can be taken almost, but not quite, for granted; adequacy is another thing, about which I shall have more to say later. Next, the map should be easily readable: It ought also to be up to date, and it should be obtainable at a ,price that is not merely reasonabile but cheap. The last two considerations are intimately connected, as the buyer of an expensive map is, naturally, inclined to keep it in use as long as possible. The old, idea of a road map was that it stiMild be Made to last alritost a lifetithe. In order to ..arreparVe it, it:Was Incanted an cloth and Might •even: be sectioned to prevent wear of the paper at the folds.
A cloth-mounted map, which was regarded as the standard article for road use, cost about as. before the war; if the buyer wanted it sectioned to fold, it meant another Is. 6d. The cost of acquiring an extensive collection of maps, or of supplying them to a considerable number of drivers, was, accordingly, on the stiff side.
The same edition of a map might remain on sale for some years. The frequency, of corrections was certainly speeded up considerably in the period immediately before the war but., all the samkit was hardly rapid enough so far as some districts were concerned, the Greater London area, being an example.
Directly hostilities cease, we shall be faced with a period of intensive reconstruction, to say nothing of a speedingup of life in geaeral, which will undoubtedly be extended' to building development. Accordingly, maps will tend, naturally, to have a far shorter life than was the case even during the inter-walyears. To meet that difficulty prices will somehow have to be brought down so that users can keep themselves properly up to date.
Obviously, the cloth mounting, which represented the cost of approximately. Is. per sheet, is the first thing that will have to go. Nor need anybody mind much about that, as the comparatively short life of the paper map ceases to be a drawback when sheets, in any case, 'are to be replaced frequently.
The, idea of using light cards, instead of paper, Is one that will 'doubtless lie exp'aared, and it may well be that the plastics people „Will „come along with seine. material that will prove enormously useful for re* procluctien, Not long before the war a set of maps was marketed which were printed on some
thing not unlike sheet celluloid, which could be washed, and was supposed to be everlasting. . Unfortunately, the price was apparently regarded as prohibitive by most prospective buyers.
The Ordnance Survey experimented with a 'waterproof paper, and I really cannot imagine -why the idea failed to catch on with: the public. It could not 'have been cost, as there was very little in it. Place's paper, as it was called. struck me as really excellent stuff; a map made with it would stand any amount of soaking and, if necessary, one could " iron " it to get the proper folds back. I have had one or two maps on this -paper in use for several years, and they are still perfectly serviceable. However, according to what the Survey Office told me, users. generally, did not seem to like them,
As regards frequency of correction, there ought to be no real difficulty about that. Given the constant demand for maps, which there clearly will he, the Survey people can afford to speed up their procedure, in which they will certainly not be found wanting.
As to readability, the majority of drivers will want to keep to the O.S. style, and that can hardly he bettered. Nor need there be any question of departing from the usual scales, which have proved the most satisfactory for their particular pui;poses.
With regard to styles, the Survey Office tried a good many experiments in the years between the wars, some of which were, naturally, not quite so successful as others.
Other publishers have tried their own ideas, too, and the broad lesson from their essays is that attempts at simplification can easily be carried too far. That applies particularly as regards contours; a map that does not show, literally, the lie of -the land, is really of very little use when one wants to pick a ruute.
Another lesson of recent years is that trick maps, which try to indicate scenic features, and that kind of thing, never seem to be altogether successial. far the best effort of that kind was. the • Michelin series, which certainly gaited a good popularity,, althoagh more probably with private motorists than with commercial-vehicle operators.