Set up Atlas
On a fresh installation, Atlas opens a four-step setup wizard. Existing installations open the map; use Settings → Setup wizard to reopen it. Choose Set up later to explore the map first.
1. Choose features
Choose any combination:
| Feature | Services prepared |
|---|---|
| Search addresses | Photon |
| Plan street routes | Photon and Valhalla |
| Use public transport | Photon and one of MOTIS or OpenTripPlanner |
| Explore places | Photon and Overpass |
You can add features later. Only one public-transport engine can run through Atlas. Choosing an engine in the wizard edits the draft; installation applies that choice. Transit engines explains switching and caches.
2. Choose regions
Search for a city, region or country and select one or more extracts. Source labels distinguish providers such as Geofabrik and BBBike, whose boundaries can differ. Start with a smaller extract for regional routing and places.
The region choice sets coverage for road routes and places by category.
Address search uses a separate Photon index, controlled by the deployment's
COUNTRY_CODE (Germany by default). Selecting Berlin does not reduce the size of
that separate index or replace an existing one.
Public transport also needs suitable timetables. Choose transport sources opens the provider manager; returning preserves the wizard step. Regions without confirmed timetable coverage show a warning. You can continue, but transit routes there need a matching timetable before they work.
3. Review
Review features, regions, engine and estimated map-source download size. The estimate covers known PBF files only: container images, search indexes, timetables and prepared output need additional space. Unknown sizes remain unknown. Installation may take minutes or hours depending on the data and host.
Back returns to the previous step. Your choices are saved automatically. Missing timetable coverage does not block installation; filesystem or Docker access failures must be resolved before Atlas can prepare data.
4. Install and follow progress
Install selected features starts the work. Source PBF and regional GTFS files share up to three concurrent downloads; repeated sources are downloaded once. Photon can start alongside regional preparation. Regional services start once their inputs are ready.
Open Installation details to follow progress; it stays open as updates arrive. You may leave the page and use ready features while installation continues. Reopen the wizard to return to progress.
On download or preparation failure, retry reuses available cached downloads. Preparation itself may need to run again. Individual failed services can be retried separately. A server restart during preparation marks the job interrupted and requires an explicit retry. Completion requires all selected services to report ready, not merely the creation of containers.
Existing services stay enabled except the other transit engine. The wizard preserves basemap settings and does not edit the separate Settings region draft. For an existing installation, read Upgrading and rollback before changing the checkout or replacing regional data.