After landing on and clearing ewr runway 29; a flight crew was cleared across the open ramp to taxiw...

Narrative:

I was instructed by tower to taxi across concrete ramp to taxiway J. The airport diagram depicts the taxiways with what appears to be separated taxiways; whereas in real life it's a solid ramp area. We overshot taxiway J and got into a position of not being able to turn onto; thus we had to use taxiway B. This was the first time either of us had been at that end of the airport and it was very confusing for the first time. I suspect it happens regularly because another carrier's two arrivals behind us did exactly the same thing we did as we waited on ramp traffic in front of us.I would suggest painting in the areas separating the taxiways; like many airports have a green color. Something to better depict the taxiway. Although I don't suspect I will make the same mistake having experienced this. My concern was uncertainty clearing across over concrete ramp to taxiway J.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: After landing on and clearing EWR Runway 29; a flight crew was cleared across the open ramp to Taxiway J. The Captain was confused because the commercial EFB airport depiction did not look like the airport's massive open ramps and indistinguishable taxiways.

Narrative: I was instructed by Tower to taxi across concrete ramp to Taxiway J. The airport diagram depicts the taxiways with what appears to be separated taxiways; whereas in real life it's a solid ramp area. We overshot Taxiway J and got into a position of not being able to turn onto; thus we had to use Taxiway B. This was the first time either of us had been at that end of the airport and it was very confusing for the first time. I suspect it happens regularly because another carrier's two arrivals behind us did exactly the same thing we did as we waited on ramp traffic in front of us.I would suggest painting in the areas separating the taxiways; like many airports have a green color. Something to better depict the taxiway. Although I don't suspect I will make the same mistake having experienced this. My concern was uncertainty clearing across over concrete ramp to Taxiway J.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1251006
Time
Date	201503
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	EWR.Airport
State Reference	NJ
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Next Generation Undifferentiated
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Aero Charts
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Clearance Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown Ground Incursion Taxiway

After landing on and clearing ewr runway 29; a flight crew was cleared across the open ramp to taxiway J. The captain was confused because the commercial efb airport depiction did not look like the airport's massive open ramps and indistinguishable taxiways.