OpenStreetMap Forum

Williams119

New Member

Registered: 2021-07-04

Posts: 1

Car Dealership ‘car parks’

Hello,

Apologies if this is a dumb question.

I am shortly going to attempt mapping an industrial/retail area, which has a number of car dealerships. Regarding the forecourt areas where vehicles are displayed for sale, should these be tagged as amenity:parking? Also, should the areas ‘around the back’ where cars are stored, should these be tagged as something different?

It seems to me that they are not really ‘car parks’, in the normal sense, and certainly not ‘amenities’, as they are tied to a commercial use. But I can’t see anything more appropriate to use.

Any help would be appreciated!

n76

Member

Registered: 2013-05-22

Posts: 313

Re: Car Dealership ‘car parks’

I simply map the isles as service roads. They are not public amenities so I don't tag them with amenity=parking.

PHerison

Member

From: Rhein-Main

Registered: 2008-04-04

Posts: 1,770

Re: Car Dealership ‘car parks’

Hi and welcome to OSM and the forum

If you are planning to drive to this area and search for a parking place in OSM: Do you expect to be routed to such a place?

Please tag as https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:shop%3Dcar

Maarten Deen

Member

Registered: 2010-05-20

Posts: 490

Re: Car Dealership ‘car parks’

I also do not tag them as parking. In fact, I have removed amenity=parking tags from them because it is misleading. When you are looking for parking spots you think you can park there but then you arrive and it is not a parking.

SK53

Member

Registered: 2009-01-11

Posts: 705

Re: Car Dealership ‘car parks’

No don't map these as car parks. The place out the back may be a repair yard, or excess stock (although when I worked for one motor distributor, the goal was to achieve stock turn within 6 weeks): there may be other suitable tags for these. The area out front is part of the sales area.

If the shop=car applies to the whole area, I'd say that there is no need to do any supplementary mapping: it's pretty much implicit that a car dealer has a stock of cars for sale. If, however, the shop=car is on a building or a node then the implicit expectation is still there, but the defined area is not. Note a range of other businesses also have similar areas: motor homes, caravans, ride-on lawnmowers, yachts, garden centres etc).

In practice I think mapping the entire area of the dealership is probably the best way to do this (although large dealers are complicated by service sections etc).

Tordanik

Moderator

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-06-17

Posts: 2,840

Website

Re: Car Dealership ‘car parks’

No don't map these as car parks.

That seems to be the overall consensus here, but the implied and unanswered question is how else they should be tagged. Of course they should be included in the shop=car polygon, but it would be nice to also have a tag for that kind of area in particular. They are visually distinctive and can be quite large.

As amenity=parking (even with access=private) appears to be an unpopular choice, this probably calls for a new tag. Ideally, it would work for both outdoor and indoor facilities, and and perhaps for car rentals as well.

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OSM in 3D: OSM2World

SK53

Member

Registered: 2009-01-11

Posts: 705

Re: Car Dealership ‘car parks’

@Tordanik : I had been wondering about that myself. My provisional idea was to mark areas as outdoor sales areas (the garden centre example was what I had in mind). Back of house areas are some kind of storage compound. Although we have boat_storage & IIRC caravan_storage as  amenities, we could possibly do with a more generic way of tagging storage areas ancillary to the site's main function. I've been noticing a lot of things which fit such a definition around Universities & Hospitals, and recently mapped an example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/959114301

Maarten Deen

Member

Registered: 2010-05-20

Posts: 490

Re: Car Dealership ‘car parks’

No don't map these as car parks.

That seems to be the overall consensus here, but the implied and unanswered question is how else they should be tagged.

Don't tag them as anything. Example here is the "Koopmans terminal", a large "car park" for imported cars. The backdrop is the standard pink industrial landuse.