I’m trying to improve indoors mapping of airports as it’s a great use of time while waiting for a flight or layover. So far it works great, even in Germany indoors of airports seem to be not really mapped (like, sometimes at all). But I’ve got a question - how do you map Security control and surroundings?
The closest what I was able to find in OSM is “barrier=border_control”, it’s almost exactly what I would use, but:
Well, it’s not border control, but security check.
The wiki says that it’s only applicable for nodes. While indoor usually the control takes the whole line from a wall to the opposite wall. So far I was tagging it with a way barrier=wall or so, but that’s again not really true (not “wall”).
And as for surroundings I mean whether I should map footway thru the control with one way =yes? Sounds meaningful for me, any concerns?
What would be your suggestion or any examples of good mapped airports I can check?
Hi! I’ve mapped the inside of airports a few times when waiting for a flight. It’s still a very niche subject, judging by how rarely some of these tags have been used.
Yes, there is passport control, there is customs, and there are airport security checks, and if we move towards more detailed mapping of airports we will need tags for each of them. For the security checks, I think the most common one is amenity=security_control (used 83 times). I’ve seen barrier=border_control but that was for the actual passport checks. Not sure about customs.
How to tag pedestrian one-ways is a whole subject in itself, but in short I would use oneway:foot.
A few niche tags that I only encountered, or invented, when I started mapping terminal buildings:
amenity=lounge
airside= I make sure to tag all POIs inside terminal buildings with this
building=airport_gate. I invented this tag for when the gate is a separate building. I encountered a few that were mapped building=gate but that’s also used, for example, on the Brandenburg gate, so it didn’t make much sense to me that airports gates should use the same tag.
we still need a tag for special assistance desks, I’ve seen a few tagged tourism=information but that doesn’t really fit
The thing that really bothers me here is a different “main” tag for basically very-very related objects. I’ve seen it already a few times in OSM and I have no idea why would one do that… Why would one be barrier and another one - amenity? I might even prefer amenity, but given that barrier=border_control is quite an established practice, I would go with that, so if we introduce security_control it should be absolutely the same: barrier=security_control
That’s a good one, I think I struggled with this as well, as many of lounges today are marked as “bar”… I would use this for sure! For some reason this wasn’t in the list in the main amenity wiki page, added it there
For European airports also something like schengen and not_schengen or so would make sense, as both are airside, but different types of airside.
Ooh, I learned a new key and a new word today. It sounds like you use it similar to the indoor=* key. If so, you might as well use it for hallway corridors as well as POIs. At some airports, the terminals are connected only before security, while at others, they’re connected only after security.
Lately, I’ve been using access=permitpermit=boarding_pass for this purpose. Iterative refinement of access=permit works more generally for any security-controlled facility, such as stadiums and courthouses. When you’re out on the town and hungry for a Big Mac, the last thing you want is to be directed to an airport or stadium concessionaire. This also allows me to distinguish between passenger and staff areas that are both past security.
amenity=lounge has good documentation and even an (abandoned) proposal. There are a number of airport lounge chains that aren’t in the name suggestion index yet because amenity=lounge and public_transport=lounge were roughly neck-and-neck the last time we looked into it, but the situation seems to have changed in favor of amenity=lounge.
I’ve mostly heard it in terms of “Airside transfer” which is one of the terms for a connection between international flights where you don’t “properly” enter the country. Some countries have special visas for it with reduced requirements. (Europe does it a lot, Canada in a couple of places the US seemingly not at all.)
That page apparently only has one other page linking to it. If people like it we should probably get it integrated better.
I’ve previously used access=arrivals and access=departures for features in areas like this although I think someone later “fixed” those by just deleting the tags that iD didn’t understand.
Would access=arrivals be for the parts of an international terminal that you can only access after deplaning but before clearing customs? Otherwise, I normally don’t see much distinction between where you can go for arrivals versus departures as a passenger. However, this does remind me that some airports have very strict rules about where cars can go to pick up and drop off arriving or departing passengers.
It was for an amenity between the gate and immigration/customs. In this case the level tag did actually indicate that you couldn’t get there from the general departure area too, but this was an additional indication.
Makes sense. I’ve seen this in Canada as well. In the U.S., the equivalent space rarely has any shops, but there are amenities such as restrooms that might benefit from a more specific access tag. In general, I’m a fan of iteratively refining the more common permit and private values, because data consumers are all over the place in terms of how they deal with unrecognized access values on POIs and navigable ways.
I’ve been to an airport (can’t remember where) where everyone who entered the building had to immediately go through a security check, and only those with boarding passes were allowed in, so taxi drivers and friends waiting to pick someone up had to wait outside. I suppose in that case, airside=yes is equivalent to indoor=yes. But at most airports I know, there’s an area for bag drop in departures, and a waiting area in arrivals, that are open to members of the public without a boarding pass, without a security check. That’s apparently landside in airport jargon. (Sorry if I misunderstood your comment.)
Oh, your experience is similar to mine. I just meant that it sounded like you intended airside=yes/no as an additional location indicator, syntactically similar to indoor=yes/no, so it would be appropriate on highway=corridor and highway=escalator as well as POIs.
It sounds like you use it similar to the 