I was wondering how you can capture the capacity of a restaurant in detail. Let’s assume a restaurant that has 50 seats outside and 100 inside. So a total capacity of 150. How can these figures best be captured in OSM?
The first impulse was in the direction of capacity:indoor and capacity:outdoor, but this is so rarely used that I wondered whether there are more established or frequently used tags for it. Thanks!
Interesting. My gut feeling was capacity:indoor_seating=* and capacity:outdoor_seating=*, but these are unused.
I would different the POIs and always use capacity:
amenity=restaurant, capacity=100
leisure=outdoor_seating, capacity=50
These are the numbers from taginfo for outdoor:
And for indoor:
I thought about that too, but then I can’t search for restaurants that have at least X seats inside and Y outside. It’s not a common query, but I was surprised by the lack of possibilities in the wiki equivalent to campsites (capacity:tents, capacity:pitches, …)
The most common tags are:
outdoor_seating:capacity
indoor_seating:capacity
The capacity is a property of the outdoor_seating, so using it as a prefix makes sense.
It doesn’t to me, because I would expect that outdoor_seating:<whatever>=* takes a value that outdoor_seating accepts, similar to oneway:bicycle=no as opposed of bicycle:oneway=no. Or maxspeed:hgv=30 not hgv:maxspeed=30 or opening_hours:kitchen=*, lanes:forward, and so on.
So for me, capacity:outdoor_seating=* is a sub-set of capacity:
capacity=150
capacity:indoor_seating=100
capacity:outdoor_seating=50
If leisure=outdoor_seating is mapped separately, it doesn’t hurt to add capacity=50 there as well.
Hi there, capacity:*=* makes the most sense here. But since capacity=* assumes the maximum number of persons a feature is meant for, specifying capacity:seats=* would match the current convention such as capactiy:tents=*, capacity:beds=*, or capacity:rooms=*. If you’d like to distinguish between indoors and outdoors, it would make sense to use capacity:seats:indoors=* or capacity:seats:outdoors=*. Something to consider is lots of places seating is fluid. A restaurant at typical arrangement may have 100 seats but when expecting a large crowd can expand to 120, for example.
The lack of use of a tag should not be an indication of a lack of usefulness. It is very possible such a scheme was simply not documented on the wiki so the tag was not used widely.
You are absolutely right, capacity:seats:<whatever>=* sounds like the correct tag to use. However, the wiki says:
So I guess, capacity:indoor_seating=* implies number of seats is meant (seating → seats), whereas capacity:indoor=* would be ambiguous, and this capacity:seats:indoor should be used. Having said that, capacity:seats:indoor=* seems identical to capacity:indoor_seating=*. So now I’m torn 
Having said that,
capacity:seats:indoor=*seems identical tocapacity:indoor_seating=*. So now I’m torn
On man are we in the weeds now haha! Was thinking uses outside of restaurants may be able to use capacity:seats:*=* better even though yes in the cafe sense both would make sense. For instance, a stadium has a seated capacity but that number can grow for a concert for example. So a stadiums capacity=* would be it’s maximum while capacity:seats:*=* could describe the number of seated capacity.
You’re mixing up different concepts.
We do have two different concepts in OSM that are more or less contradictory. One is subkeys, the other is namespaces.
Your example key ‘oneway’ and also ‘capacity’ is used with subkeys. Here the possible values depend on the key.
Things like ‘cycleway’ and also ‘outdoor_seating’ are used as a namespace. Here the possible values are given by the key following the namespace, i.e. the second part after the semicolon.
Namespaces are used to further describe a sub-feature of the main feature (Here: the capacity of the outdoor_seating, which is a sub-feature of the main restaurant)
We’re also not using “comfort:outdoor_seating”, but “outdoor_seating:comfort”, because it’s not the comfort of the restaurant, but the comfort of the outdoor_seating we’re talking about.
Compare to “oneway:bicycle”, where reading it as “the bicycle of the oneway” doesn’t make any sense.
There are many cases where one can discuss whether a namespace or a subkey is the better solution. But the current usage of outdoor_seating is clearly a namespace.
You are comparing 2 different types. oneway= , maxspeed= , and lanes= are strictly attributes. *_seating are attributes showing a derived or associated feature, which are already established, regardless of whether they are the main functionality or not. The comparison should be made with eg toilets= , which uses toilets:*=
If you raise capacity:seats:*= , why not seats= directly? This is more certainly physical for the number of seats, compared to capacity= which can be legal, practical, or arbitary. There’s already beds= , rooms=
Because that’s the documented way to do it according to the wiki. seats=* is used for amenity=bench, and capacity:seats=* for indoor/outdoor seating.
There are only 310 capacity:seats= , which is not convincing. Nothing forbids seats= from being used on other features, and we can improving it to be more objective and verfiaible, not to mention other features can have a more specific, accurate definition. Having consistency and following the example set by beds= and rooms= are more useful.
Majority of capacity:seats= is mass added osm tag history
We should ask does @mcliquid refer to the number of actual physical seats, or seatings? Restaurants can have sofa which might squeeze in more people, but they can set a limit for serving and from utensils. In this sense, I would use capacity= and eg seats= differently.
Or maybe they can bring in more extra chairs temporarily. Does that count as number of seats, or it must be permanent?
Alternatively, looking from the opposite direction, tables= has been used on various features, and including outdoor_seating:tables= on =restaurant etc. It should be more useful, as the number of each table size is important than the total number of people. However, sometimes tables can be merged or split. tables | Keys | OpenStreetMap Taginfo
Usually you don’t go into the restaurant and count seats, but they will either have a sign “maximum of X people can be seated”, or when you call them, they will tell you, how much people can fit in. Whether that includes squeezing on a couch, or having your dedicated seat is usually not the important bit, because most people are interested in ball park figures, not exact values.
That’s a very good question, and one that I hadn’t thought of from my own cultural background. It’s not my area of expertise, so excuse the clumsy wording. In Germany and Austria, restaurants always have an (individual) legally prescribed maximum number of people allowed. This has primarily fire protection reasons. This maximum number of people allowed is specified in the issued “concession” (permission to operate a restaurant). In other words, the owner cannot say: “Oh, we’ll just squeeze everyone in a bit, then we’ll get everyone in.” (That’s real German, I know)
The maximum number of people depends on several factors, such as the width of the door, the number of emergency exits, structural separations, and so on.
In principle, this number is not prominently displayed (unfortunately not compatible for a StreetComplete Quest). But some restaurants write about it on their website, or you can ask briefly under the pretext of a planned event.
To make sure it doesn’t blow up in my face later: Yes, you can request a special permit for individual events (Christmas parties, carnival, etc.). But then you also have to present a written security concept that is tailored to the event.
So, in the end, it comes down to the number of seats (number of chairs allowed). Whether the owner distributes 100 chairs to 50 tables or to 10 tables is up to him.
(That’s real German, I know)
actually prescriptions for the maximum number of people in fire regulations are not specific to Germany, it is common in many countries, maybe in some places authorities are less frequently carrying out inspections.
Not quite right:
capacity:indoor : 36x
indoor_seating:capacity 15x
The capacity indoors is not necessarily the same as the capacity of the indoor seating. Depending on the type of POI they can be different. E.g. in a club I expect the two numbers to be vastly different.