Do not confuse this with amenity=fuel (fuel stations) which sell several varieties of motor fuel in quantities large enough to fill a full-size vehicle or truck.[1]
Fuel shops selling motor fuels are mainly found in rural areas of less developed countries for refueling motorcycles and small tractors. They are often just a house with some barrels or bottles clearly displayed. They are generally not appropriate to refuel an automobile, truck or similar large vehicle due to the larger volume of fuel those vehicles require and the relatively high cost per liter of the fuel. Such shops typically have no signage to indicate their presence nor are any other services available.
This info is from the original shop=fuel wiki page, created by @AlaskaDave after the global community accepted his proposal via the mailing list back in 2015-2017.
Basically, it shows that the original idea was to use this tag for refueling small vehicle tanks with small containers like bottles or barrels. It also indicates that the community already preferred at the time having a separate high-level tag instead of making it a sub-tag under amenity=fuel.
Fine, so perhaps shop=fuel is the most widely accepted for now. I have no objections, however I am curious about the clear criteria used to differentiate between shop=fuel and amenity=fuel. It seems to be a method of storing fuel?
Based on the information I’ve gathered, the primary criteria for identifying such establishments are as follows:
The tag shop=fuel designates places that dispense fuel directly from small containers, such as barrels or bottles.
shop=fuel establishments are generally unsuitable for refilling the fuel tanks of motorcars or larger vehicles due to limited availability, capacity, high prices, and a relatively slow refilling process (each refill tube typically contains 300 THB worth of fuel).
Additionally, though not officially documented, one of the main reasons I believe why some hesitate to classify these shops under the amenity=fuel tag:
A shop=fuel is a small manned unsigned stand located alongside public roads or adjacent to other shops. It may not be considered a service “Station” that offers a drive-through experience within a private retail estate, complete with additional amenities like toilets and retail services (shops, repair, air refill).
Standalone fuel vending machines (amenity=vending_machine + vending=fuel) share similar criteria (2 and 3), with the main distinction being that they provide fuel through automatic vending machines.
I agree with @Julcnx in general. His reasoning makes sense for Thailand and is a workable solution.
To nitinatsangsit’s question, I say if you drive a motorcycle around Thailand you will come to know this type of shop when you see one. They are a completely different operation when compared to a full-service amenity=fuel station. They are of interest to a very limited subset of motor_vehicle drivers.
The entire rationale behind the use of shop=fuel is because of that limited usefulness to the community at large. Would tagging them amenity=fuel be wrong? No, not wrong but IMO, misleading.
Hi @pLoskutov, I’ve checked out the previous tags and Mapillary photos, and I’ve changed about a dozen of these vending machines back to ‘shop=fuel.’ I even spotted a couple of amenity=fuel independent stations with roofs and drive-through, and there’s a good chance they have underground tanks too. By the way, your hundreds of added nodes are pretty awesome and really helpful for the motorcycle community. Keep it up!
Latecomer to the discussion, but while agree with most refinements, I strongly disagree with the change to the fuel vending machine tagging.
Most navigation software will not recognise this combination of tags (amenity=vending_machine + vending=fuel), and if you need fuel come car or motorcycle, your new tagging will hide these nodes.
In Europe, and specifically France, there are hundreds of these fuel stations that vend automatically, with the only pertinent difference being the size of the storage tank. Are you saying this is the deciding factor ? Drum vs something bigger.
Some of these vending machines sell diesel, and that is bound to go in trucks/cars.
Reading the thread, it doesnt seem like a consensus was reached, and nitinganset and timmy appear to broadly support my logic.
Fine, if sold from a drum (or in bottles) and dispensed by a human, I can accept shop along the lines its sold in a similar manner to items in a shop.
If its vended from a pump with a nozzle, thats more akin to a fuel station and should get the amenity=fuel tag. Please change the Wiki accordingly.
I have tagged this way for 10 years and will continue to do so.
Nice to hear from you, and sorry for not reaching out earlier. It seemed like you’d gone off the Thailand radar for a bit.
You’ve made some good points, so let’s dive back into this topic.
From my perspective, we should tag all fuel dispensing points as amenity=fuel, but we still need some concrete and documented subtags to differentiate the three categories (station, vending machines and drummed shop), and without it I felt it might be preferable to employ a distinct high-level tag (@AlaskaDave, @pLoskutov agreed).
That’s accurate, especially regarding OsmAnd, and enabling support for this may take a while.
Good to know, and it seems that some drummed fuel shops also fit into this category, giving us another reason to categorize these dispensing points for cars.
Drummed fuel shops also use a nozzle to dispense fuel, although their mechanism differs from traditional pumps. Nonetheless, their primary function remains refilling motor vehicles (vs other machinery). So, if we’re tagging vending machines as amenity=fuel, I don’t see a reason to distinguish drummed fuel shops differently.
Here’s an idea that just occurred to me, inspired by @Timmy_Tesseract’s feedback. We could consider using officially documented amenity=fuel sub-tags, like this:
I wouldn’t classify them either as self service or full service because you have to handle the nozzle yourself while the attendant pumps the fuel by hand.
What do you think ?
2023-09-22: updated drummed fuel shop sub-tags proposal based on @AlaskaDave’s feedback
It is required to resolve the issue of naming.
Vendindg machine does not require the name and brand, but it does not hurt (there are SuperRich networks etc).
What to do with small fuel stations other than brand (esso, pt, ppt, shell, etc)?
There are independent stations without a name or a little-known name (not a brand). Now I often see how some of them have a name and/or brand as “independent”.
A decision is required - which name and/or which brand to indicate in such cases.
P.S. I mark the dots while riding a motorcycle, so I don’t have the opportunity to record the brand. Often a large station created by me does not have the correct name. Then I write “brand”. Or is it better to leave it empty?
I tagged many of these fuel stations with operator=independent because regardless of the particular brand of petrol they sell, the major fuel companies are not at all involved with running the facility. There’s really no need for an operator tag but I used it for the sake of completeness and as another way to set them apart from normal, full-service stations.
@julcnx:
I have no objection to your proposed tagging scenario, with one exception. Drummed fuel is never self service. The seller is always needed to dispense the fuel. I have never seen a self service drummed fuel shop.
In addition, I certainly would not classify them as ameniity=fuel for reasons already endlessly discussed.
Yes, off the radar as spending my summer in the UK, & busy mapping Wales and its constantly changing speed limits. … back to Thai next month.
Julian, I appreciate your efforts in trying to bring things to a standard, and where things are relatively inconsequential, I don’t see the need to make waves.
However with an issue such as this, it does irk when a tagging change to something not widely used, is considered. I have been mapping rural stations for years (as thats where I ride). Fuel stops are planned on both Garmin & OSMand, and to see these locations disappear because of this change, does negate a lot of my efforts.
However I see you listening, so as a minimum I would like to see all vending machines, still carry the amenity=fuel top level tag.
I feel the “dispensed from drums shops” should too, but would concede, if the majority feel that way.
I agree that bottle shops do not need the amenity=fuel tag… but have fun constantly undoing the well intended backpackers on Samui and the like, constantly adding nodes via maps.me at every point they see what looks like a old whiskey bottle filled with pee, sitting on a rusty coca cola stand !
Russ, I appreciate your input, but while you get the chance to disconnect from Thailand for many months a year, some new mapper @pLoskutov, who has done some amazing contributions in northern Thailand while bike touring, had decided to convert and map all drummed fuel shops, vending machines and independent gas station on his way as amenity=vending_machine, so there was urgency to document the different categories of dispensing fuel points and figure out some unique way to differentiate them.
I hear you, and I will assume you have no objections that these vending machines will be extended with additional official tags (self_service=yes, automated=yes) to distinguish them from other categories.
Completely agree, and I don’t feel this needs to be covered here yet as these will slowly disappear.
We’ve already discussed why both vending machines and drummed fuel shops (excluding bottled stands) might not fit perfectly under the amenity=fuel tag due to factors like fuel storage capacity and available fuel types.
However, motorcycles rely on both of these options equally, and as @Russ_McD pointed out, Garmin/OsmAnd navigation systems currently only recognize points tagged as amenity=fuel. Moreover, some of these points offer diesel, making them valuable for pickup trucks.
So, I’m curious to understand how having these points visible on maps personally affects you, and what’s driving your strong desire to see them categorized differently?
Makes sense, but they wouldn’t exactly fall into the “full service” category either, would they? They do hand you the nozzle, but you still have to handle it yourself and communicate with the seller if you need to stop or add more.
So, how about we tag these as self_service=no + full_service=no? Keep in mind, we need distinct sub-tags to set them apart from traditional gas stations.
Keep in mind that the official definitions for these tags are not set in stone:
" There are not agreed upon tags for different levels of service, but both self_service=yes/no and full_service=yes/no and automated=yes/no have been used. Note that a gas station can be both self serve and full serve. The expectation for the default values of self_serivce and full_service will probably vary greatly from location to location, so it’s probably best to always explicitly specify both to take the guessing out of it."
I don’t have a great stake in how this conversation turns out but it has always seemed to me that tagging a barrelled fuel shop with amenity=fuel was misleading. Misleading because the only thing they have in common with a normal fuel station is that they sell petrol. Still, in an emergency, one could buy enough fuel there to get to a bigger service station.
And while many have a hose and nozzle for dispensing petrol, I have never seen one that is self service. So, most are neither full service nor self service, which means those two tags you suggested are both valid and should be part of their tagging.
The selection of a certain tagging scenario with the goal of making these shops show up on OSMAnd or Garmin maps is both wrong and completely beside the point. We don’t tag for the renderer. That is a hard, fast rule in OSM. I make my own Garmin-compatible maps and I take care to render these fuel stations differently. Other renderers may someday choose to do that as well.
Thanks a lot, @Mark_B, for the correction! OsmAnd does even support Fuel Store (shop=fuel), I totally missed that feature. The only downside is that there’s no category for “Fuel Vending Machine,” but we can give requesting it a shot.
I totally agree with you on that. Meanwhile, that data is quite handy for non-tech savvy end-users, and if the majority of renderers aren’t using these separate tags, maybe we’re not on the right track. However, as @Mark_B pointed out, these separate tags are already supported by OsmAnd, and I doubt now that Garmin doesn’t.
Note: all members of the Thailand community are welcome to vote, but kindly ensure that you are familiar with the topic and the complete conversation history beforehand.
… back to Thai next month.