That’s a very good point.

In general, I feel that most bus-only maps are visually very similar: they tend to geographically accurate (as people have a greater need to know just how close the bus goes to their home/destination, and what route it takes inbetween) with coloured route lines accurately following the roads shown. Most will attempt to give some idea of frequency of service, either by use of symbols or different strokes or dashes on the route line, but that often seems to be the only difference between different maps.

When it comes down to it, I see bus maps as normal street maps that just happen to have bus routes on them, and I personally don’t find that as interesting as a simplified diagram that creates order out of chaos.

That said, I will try to find some examples of what I consider to be excellent (or extremely poor) examples of the genre and showcase them in the future.