Service and Rest Areas

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No problem tagging a rest area or that highway service area as highway services. Not overly common, but according to the wiki. And Willi did a lot like this in the past already.

But please do not name it like in your example. It’s not named like this. I assume in most cases it has no name at all. It is a service area consisting of a fuel station, shop(s), cafe, toilets.

Please refer to the (international) wiki for more details.

Please also keep individual amenities like fuel station and 7eleven as such.

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Hmm. In my mind, I’ve always thought of highway=services as limited to officially designated service areas like the one on the Chonburi Motorway. It can be hard to draw the line for privately operated stations. How big does a station have to be before it stops being an amenity=fuel with a minimart/coffee shop on the premises and becomes a service area instead?

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Having a PTT with all these amenities tagged as highway=services in addition to the amenity=fuel, shop=convenience and so on should not harm.

Important thing is to have the features as single features there. So I could tell my satnav to find the nearest fuel stop. Or look for the nearest toilet or convenience store.

Labeling the service area as anything like “PTT service area” sounds wrong. It’s a description, not a name.
In Germany they have official names which are on motorway signposts, probably other countries in Europe as well. Given the history of tag inventions it’s obvious where it originated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_area

This is not applicable to the situation in Thailand.

Stephan

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Many (all?) of the salas along the road are used for public transport purposes. I’m tagging them as bus stops with shelter and bench. Certainly not highway services.

The definition of highway=services would map best to either those PTT areas or to places where bus companies stop on a long distance drive and you get a meal with your coupon. But it’s certainly different to the type of service area known from Europe.

Should we avoid that tag at all? Is there much added benefit from it?

If you’re traveling and looking for a toilet or 7/11 along the route, everyone in Thailand knows from experience that it’s available at fuel stations and 7/11 are plenty. Even going to more rural areas without 7/11: There are still lots of small corner shops selling water or other supplies. And we have all POI tagged as such already.

Stephan

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Well, I’m unsure where you are leaving this at. I did tag a bonfide rest_area as highway=services but now wonder what the best way to tag it is. The area in question is the Khuntan Rest Area on the Superhighway between Chiang Mai and Lampang: here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/18.3940/99.2141&layers=H

I believe the words Rest Area are in the proper name as it appears on the signs as you approach it but I do not have a photograph to verify. It has parking, a restaurant, coffee, fuel, and toilets and is quite a nice stopping place that I’m relatively sure you’re familiar with.

Service_area would be the one to use I think.

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For PTT, they appear to use a specific branding scheme for their “PTT Life Station” concept. (See http://www.roadsafetythai.org/document/page/page_199_110921054129.pdf , in Thai.) "PTT Park"s are the largest, followed by “PTT Platinum” and “PTT Standard”. I guess stations signposted “PTT Park” would generally meet the expectations for a service area. (And each branch is usually conveniently referred to as “PTT Park [name of location]”.) Not sure how to compare this to other brands, though.

Edited: typo

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I think only the PTT Park brand is advertised in the stations’ names (and signs). “Platinum” and “Standard” probably shouldn’t be named as such, since travellers might not recognise them.