Best Practice for adding an ATM

ATM’s appear all over the place. Some are part of the bank, others are at filling stations, and others are in supermarkets, etc… Also, there are large POIs defined as polygons and not points and the ATM is simply an entity within it as much as another shop is an entity within it.

On some occasions, there are ATMs that are totally on their own and attached to nothing. Last but not least, some ATMs are outside, and some are inside.

So…what are their guideline for defining an ATM?

Scenario 1: if the ATM is part of a bank, should the ATM be a tag for that bank?
e.g.
Amenity = bank
Name = <bank_name>
Cash Machine = yes (or atm = yes)

Scenario 2: Create a separate entity for the ATM (even if it is part of the bank)
e.g.
Amenity = Cash Machine
Operator =

Scenario 3: The ATM is part of a non-bank entity defined as a point. e.g. a filling station or shop
Should a separate ATM amenity be created, or should we define the ATM as a property of the shop (or filling station) entity?

Scenario 4: The ATM is part of a non-bank entity defined as a polygon. e.g. a filling station or shop
Could we add a point to the polygon and create a separate ATM entity ON the polygon?
Or should the polygon have an ATM defined as one of the tags or fields?

Scenario 5: The ATM is a stand-alone entity either inside another polygon defined amenity or outside on its own
In this case, I guess there is only one option here!

Hi,

This is very interesting, I guess this needs discussion on a Tagging list - it’s a place where we discuss general tagging schemas and your question is pretty general:

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging

@kocio - shall I create a new post or is there a way to forward this one?

Mailing list is just a different form of communication than forum. You could just post a link to this thread, but I guess people are lazy and it’s better to send full question again (when you subscribe there).

There are two relevant tags here, amenity=atm and atm=yes. The first is used to map the ATM itself. The latter can be added to a bank, and possibly other shops and facilities, to express that it has one or more ATMs available.

Note that a separate amenity=atm node can be mapped for all ATMs if the mapper wishes, whether they are inside or outside, and whether they belong to another facility or are standalone – in fact, it’s generally considered superior detail compared with atm=yes, although it takes more effort.

@Tordanik - Thanks!

and sometimes the mapper knows attributes of the ATM that has to be mapped in a standaolne element because there are different values (e,g, the “opening_hours” of ATM is 24/7, but the bank is not 24/7)

or the element is a large area, and the ATM mapped as a node is more precise location to find it or to navigate to.

A quick rule of thumb is to use amenity=atm for ones which are accessible outdoors (in general 24/7 opening hours) and atm=yes when they are indoors, difficult to locate precisely and share the opening hours with the surrounding element (shop or bank).

Of course people often use atm=yes as a shortcut when they have a lot of stuff to map, or it is difficult to draw building outlines.

For blind or partially-sighted people I would think in general amenity=atm would be preferred (this is an excellent use case for simple indoor mapping). In this latter situation I would also consider making sure any likely obstructions (e.g, steps) which are near the ATM are also mapped.

Thanks @SK53 and @muralito - this very useful information and make alot of sense. In the context of our project, it is for visually impaired users, so it is important that we can be precise with respect to the location of the ATM.

Thanks to everyone so far for their responses.