Any recommendations for tagging the special form factor of “curb charger” charge points? These are electronic vehicle charging infrastructure embedded into street curbs, see Curb charger | Rheinmetall
Since this tag would describe the form factor and not necessarily an element of the charging process it probably should reside within the charging_point:* name space. There is already some use of charging_point:model to tag manufacturer specific models. So maybe charging_point:type=curb_charger could work.
The one installed in Leipzig yesterday is the model previously tested in Cologne and Dusseldorf and now considered market ready product.
I have to check the installation today, but I’m worried it might be not too easy to identify manufacturer and model info from the outside. Also relying on model names would make it exponentially harder to query all charge points of this installation type. So I would favor a manufacturer independent tagging of this installation form factor.
Good comment regarding GB vs US English. It seems at least in case of Rheinmetall they settled on the US wording. I found one reference to “kern charging” here: Revolutionising Urban Charging: Rheinmetall's Innovative Kerb Solution charging_point:type=kerb_charger would work equally well for me.
model= is proper names in freeform text. =Curb Charger would be correct.
But this is not the exact question. It might be eg location=underground if considering the kerbstone forms the ground.
I suggest to directly define one or two more types, maybe wall_box, pillar, cabinet for the most commonly found designs.
I’m not sure about charging_point vs. charging_station. I would definitely want to avoid having two tags - charging_point:type on a amenity=charging_station looks a bit weird and vice versa.
Please suggest another tag then. There are cases where xyz and xyz:type where discussed or in use and we decided correctly to use the one without type.
In this case I think we should not use charging_point=*, this seems way too generic. We might use something like charging_point:style, charging_point:design, but these are equally “empty” terms.
There’s format= , but architectural/art *form= (as in “form factor”) cf railway:signal:*:form= (although that’s using the same meaning) would be better. And there’s *structure= , considering the enclosure.
But this doesn’t seem needed yet. Simply support=wall vs (support=ground +) mount=pedestal (post_box:type=pillar are entirely thick ones) vs mount=cabinet etc first. A wallbox is simply a box on wall. The box can be on a post, or protected inside a larger box.
There’s the usual problem from support= for the inability to handle compound structures of poles on walls, causing confusing abominations as support=wall vs support=wall_mounted to be created. support= could be used when something is attached to an existing structure directly. mount= can then be for a dedicated structure to hold something, which can be installed on ground, or other structures. Therefore boxes added on street light or utilities should be support=pole , instead of mount=pole , to distinguish the two. However, obviously it gets complicated when the charger is integrated inside the pole with no box protruding.
Those two are details, but they don’t describe the design of a charging point. A brand can buy chargers from various manufacturers, manufacturers can build different designs.
These are good tags to describe how something is mounted or installed, but they don’t describe the design. A pillar or stele type charger is also support=ground, like a cabinet. If a charger is a larger box, it’s neither mounted to a box or supported by a box, it is just sitting on the ground.
There is a need for a dedicated tag. If this is charging_point:type, charging_point:design or something else doesn’t matter. charging_point without suffixes is no good choice, because the design is not one of the major feature of a charging POI - unlike e.g. benches where bench=* is used for the shape/design, because it is the most important part of the description.
Then what should the attribute be about? =wallbox won’t be obvious it isn’t about boxes on walls, and using for something that’s not on =wall would look confusing.
I mentioned support=ground only as a shared attribute between some of them. Eg mount= would be what distinguish those.
Unsure what should large ones resembling =fuel_pump / =vending_machine be called. Apparently there was a =fuel_column for the former. Here another question can be seen on whether “cabinets” should be something you have to open, or it’s the =street_cabinet size.
