Key:bus_bay

The bus_bay=* key can be used to indicate the presence of a bus bay. A bus bay is a designated area where buses can pull over to pick up or drop off passengers. It's often located at the side of a road or within a bus station or terminal. Bus bays help manage traffic flow and ensure that buses don’t obstruct other vehicles while they’re loading or unloading passengers.

A bus bay must be a bay outside the main carriageway (not included in lane count) and not physically separated. It does not matter whether a bus stop is placed at the bus bay or not. The only criteria a bay along a side of the road being considered a bus bay is that the purpose is to pick up and/or drop off passengers.

If the boarding place is physically separated (splits off) from the main carriageway, make a highway=service for it and do not use this tag unless there is really a bay along the carriageway of highway=service.

Usage

To provide information about bus bays, add the bus_bay=* tag to the highway=* way representing the street.

The values left and right depend on the direction in which the way is drawn in OpenStreetMap. A value of left means the left-hand side of the road when looking in forward direction, while right means the right-hand side. See Forward & backward, left & right for further explanation about directions and sides.

If the boarding place is physically separated from the street please use a separate way (e.g. highway=service).

Additional tags

Additional tags can be added by using the bus_bay: prefix, in combination with the :left/right/both suffix (becoming an infix here). For example:

• bus_bay:left:access=*

Values

Value	Description
both	Both sides of the street have bus bays.
right	One bus bay on the right side of the way representing the street.
left	One bus bay on the left side of the way representing the street.

See also

• Proposed_features/bus bay - approved proposal for this key
• highway=emergency_bay - emergency bay on a highway
• highway=passing_place - A passing place on a single track road.
• public_transport=stop_position
• highway=bus_stop
• Bus lanes