Openstreetmap

This page is a tutorial how to map Official Hitchhiking spots on OpenStreetMap which is a crowd-sourced map that relies on our contributions to become a more complete map of the world.

For the hitchhiking community this should be the source of truth to collect spots that are designed to be the starting point of a hitchhiking ride. It has to be possible to recognize that these spots are used for hitchhiking (even by non-hitchhikers) which means there has to an official sign or a special bench.

To define the purpose of a spot on OpenStreetMap a standard is defined that describes it as a hitchhiking spot.

How to add an hitchhiking spot to OpenStreetMap

First you have to know an official hitchhiking that qualifies as such according to the standard which is not yet part of OpenStreetMap. Spots that already exits can be found at this site.

For the below example, the mapper has visited the hitchhiking bench themselves and saw it entered in Comby.

Then, you just add a new point to the map and tag it as what it is. It is easier than you think.

You can do this best from the browser of your laptop.

Go to https://www.openstreetmap.org/. You need to be logged in or create a new account.

You will have to switch to edit mode at the top.

On the map scroll to the area where your new spot is. Depending on your taste and what helps you best to find the spot on the map you can either choose the normal map or satellite view from "Background".

Once you zoom in you will see many other objects that are already mapped such as streets (lines) and houses (areas), even trees (points). By clicking on them you can inspect their details. We will also add such an object which is a point and specify in the details that it is an official hitchhiking spot.

The kind of a point and details about it are defined by tags. The tag that is used for official hitchhiking spots that was defined in the standard is highway (as the tag) and hitchhiking (as the value) as one usually hitchhikes on streets. This is also similar to how bus stops are mapped.

Now you are done with the bare minimum. Just "Save" your changes, add a description about your change and "Upload" it. The new spot should appear on OpenStreetMap within a few minutes.

This is the newly added spot.

Now you can even add some more details about the spot. This is done by adding more tags to the point. For available tags please refer to the standard. This can be especially interesting if you are the operator or municipality that set up the official hitchhiking spot to reference your organization using the operator tag. Or for tagging it as a bench if it is indeed a hitchhiking bench.