Tag:highway=hitchhiking

An official hitchhiking spot. A place, that is intended for hitchhiking. Similar to a bus stop. The place may be marked with e.g. a sign, pole, shelter or a bench. It can be located on the side of a road or on a parking lot or rest station.

The highway=hitchhiking tag is used to identify the position where passengers (hitchhikers) wait to get picked up for a ride.

Hitchhiking is a means of transportation that is being characterized by the following:

• free
• spontaneous thus uncertain
• with strangers

Those principles should not be in question and not necessary to explain at the tagged place.

To signal that they want to be picked up hitchhikers use "the thumb" as a signal, a sign with a direction on it or it is implicit by standing/sitting at the hitchhiking stop.

This tag is specifically intended to be used for stops that are designed for hitchhiking as a local mode of transportation to support the public transport infrastructure.

It is different from Tag:amenity=car_pooling, where the driver and passenger are in contact before the ride, agree on a time and place and a payment from the passenger to the driver can be involved.

How to map

A hitchhiking stop should be defined for each discrete location where a pole, sign, shelter or bench is placed and where a person should wait for a vehicle to pick them up spontaneously. The widely used approach is to place hitchhiking stop nodes off to one side of the highway way, and not with the node being part of the highway=* way. If there are places for hitchhikers to wait on both sides of the road then two hitchhiking stops should be defined.

Only allow this tag where hitchhiking is legal. This might come down to country or kind of road level.

Tag	Importance	Description
highway=hitchhiking	! Required	Describes this feature as a hitchhiking stop. This tag is used on a node positioned to the side of the road (where hitchhikers wait).
bench=*	? Optional	'yes' if a bench for riders to sit on is present at the stop. 'no' if not. The bench may also be mapped separately. Using this tag in combination with highway=hitchhiking should be used for ride-sharing benches.
name=*	‽ Recommended	Name of the hitchhiking stop similar to a name of a highway=bus_stop.
operator=*	? Optional	Maintainer of the hitchhiking stop, might be local welfare associations or civil councils.
destination=*	? Optional	Suggested destinations might be given on flip signs.
shelter=*	‽ Recommended	'yes' if the stop is protected from the rain by a shelter. 'no' if it is not. The shelter may also be mapped separately using amenity=shelter and shelter_type=public_transport.
covered=*	? Optional	'yes' if the stop is protected from the rain by cover that is not a dedicated shelter. 'no' if it is not.
bin=*	? Optional	'yes' if there is a trash can at the stop. 'no' if not. The bin may also be mapped separately.
lit=*	? Optional	'yes' if the stop is lit up at night. 'no' if not.
pole=*	? Optional	If there is a pole marking the stop.
flag=*	? Optional	If there is a flag or sign detailing the name, reference, etc. of the stop.

This table is a wiki template with a default description in English. Editable here.

Photos

• Examples from Europe
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• Examples from the United States
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  Directional sign to "Carpool Staging Area" in Arlington County, Virginia
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  "Casual Carpool" sign in Oakland, California

Tagging examples

Picture	Tags	Link
	highway=hitchhiking bench=yes name=Mitfahrbank Eltviller Straße operator=Arbeitskreis Taunussteiner Energiewende destination=Aartalzentrum;Mühlfeldzentrum;Hahn-Busbahnhof shelter=no	4952168954 4952168954
	highway=hitchhiking bench=yes shelter=yes bin=yes name=Mairie de Beaumont-Hague (known from operator website) operator=Cap Cotentin operator:wikidata=Q110940036	13114608103 13114608103

See also

• https://hitchwiki.org/en/Main_Page

Software support

• uMap with hitchhiking benches
• uMap with detailed information on hitchhiking benches in Passauer Oberland
• Ohsome provides good insights into the usage of this tag.

Related tags

• Refer to the mechanical edit to check that no other methods to tag the entity described in this article are used.
• hitchhiking=no to imply that hitchhiking is illegal in an area, but it is not widely adopted and not documented yet.
• abandoned:hitchhiking=local to imply that there was an official hitchhiking spot that is not present anymore it is not widely adopted and not documented yet.