diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 7e9c5f4..75e5ddc 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ FROM ubuntu:18.04
 # Set up environment
 ENV TZ=UTC
 ENV AUTOVACUUM=on
+ENV UPDATES=disabled
 RUN ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && echo $TZ > /etc/timezone
 
 # Install dependencies
@@ -63,6 +64,10 @@ RUN echo "deb [ allow-insecure=yes ] http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ bi
   unzip \
   wget \
   zlib1g-dev \
+  osmosis \
+  osmium-tool \
+  cron \
+  python-psycopg2 python-shapely python-lxml \
 && apt-get clean autoclean \
 && apt-get autoremove --yes \
 && rm -rf /var/lib/{apt,dpkg,cache,log}/
@@ -138,7 +143,22 @@ RUN chown -R postgres:postgres /var/lib/postgresql \
   && chown postgres:postgres /etc/postgresql/10/main/postgresql.custom.conf.tmpl \
   && echo "\ninclude 'postgresql.custom.conf'" >> /etc/postgresql/10/main/postgresql.conf
 
+# copy update scripts
+COPY openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire /usr/bin/
+RUN chmod +x /usr/bin/openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire \
+    && mkdir /var/log/tiles \
+    && chmod a+rw /var/log/tiles \
+    && ln -s /home/renderer/src/mod_tile/osmosis-db_replag /usr/bin/osmosis-db_replag \
+    && echo "*  *    * * *   renderer    openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire\n" >> /etc/crontab
+
+# install trim_osc.py helper script
+USER renderer
+RUN cd ~/src \
+    && git clone https://github.com/zverik/regional \
+    && chmod u+x ~/src/regional/trim_osc.py
+
 # Start running
+USER root
 COPY run.sh /
 COPY indexes.sql /
 ENTRYPOINT ["/run.sh"]
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ea3ddd0..a49fc6c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -10,40 +10,87 @@ First create a Docker volume to hold the PostgreSQL database that will contain t
 
 Next, download an .osm.pbf extract from geofabrik.de for the region that you're interested in. You can then start importing it into PostgreSQL by running a container and mounting the file as `/data.osm.pbf`. For example:
 
-    docker run -v /absolute/path/to/luxembourg.osm.pbf:/data.osm.pbf -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main overv/openstreetmap-tile-server import
+```
+    docker run -v /absolute/path/to/luxembourg.osm.pbf:/data.osm.pbf \
+               -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main \
+               overv/openstreetmap-tile-server \
+               import
+```
 
 If the container exits without errors, then your data has been successfully imported and you are now ready to run the tile server.
 
+### Automatic updates (optional)
+
+If your import is an extract of the planet and has polygonal bounds associated with it, like those from geofabrik.de, then it is possible to set your server up for automatic updates. Make sure to reference both the OSM file and the polygon file during the import process to facilitate this:
+
+```
+    docker run -v /absolute/path/to/luxembourg.osm.pbf:/data.osm.pbf \
+               -v /absolute/path/to/luxembourg.poly:/data.poly \
+               -v /openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main \
+               overv/openstreetmap-tile-server \
+               import
+```
+
+Refer to the section *Automatic updating and tile expiry* to actually enable the updates.
+
 ## Running the server
 
 Run the server like this:
 
-    docker run -p 80:80 -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main -d overv/openstreetmap-tile-server run
+```
+    docker run -p 80:80 \
+               -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main \
+               -d overv/openstreetmap-tile-server \
+               run
+```
 
-Your tiles will now be available at `http://localhost:80/tile/{z}/{x}/{y}.png`. The demo map in `leaflet-demo.html` will then be available on `http://localhost:80`. Note that it will initially quite a bit of time to render the larger tiles for the first time.
+Your tiles will now be available at `http://localhost:80/tile/{z}/{x}/{y}.png`. The demo map in `leaflet-demo.html` will then be available on `http://localhost:80`. Note that it will initially take quite a bit of time to render the larger tiles for the first time.
 
-## Preserving rendered tiles
+### Preserving rendered tiles
 
 Tiles that have already been rendered will be stored in `/var/lib/mod_tile`. To make sure that this data survives container restarts, you should create another volume for it:
 
+```
     docker volume create openstreetmap-rendered-tiles
-    docker run -p 80:80 -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main -v openstreetmap-rendered-tiles:/var/lib/mod_tile -d overv/openstreetmap-tile-server run
+    docker run -p 80:80 \
+               -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main \
+               -v openstreetmap-rendered-tiles:/var/lib/mod_tile \
+               -d overv/openstreetmap-tile-server \
+               run
+```
 
-## Performance tuning
+### Enabling automatic updating (optional)
+
+Given that you've specified both the OSM data and polygon as specified in the *Automatic updates* section during server setup, you can enable the updating process by setting the variable `UPDATES` to `enabled`:
+
+```
+docker run -p 80:80 \
+           -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main \
+           -v openstreetmap-rendered-tiles:/var/lib/mod_tile \
+           -d overv/openstreetmap-tile-server \
+           -e UPDATES=enabled \
+           run
+```
+
+This will enable a background process that automatically downloads changes from the OpenStreetMap server, filters them for the relevant region polygon you specified, updates the database and finally marks the affected tiles for rerendering.
+
+## Performance tuning and tweaking
+
+Details for update procedure and invoked scripts can be found here [link](https://ircama.github.io/osm-carto-tutorials/updating-data/).
 
 ### THREADS
 
 The import and tile serving processes use 4 threads by default, but this number can be changed by setting the `THREADS` environment variable. For example:
-
+```
     docker run -p 80:80 -e THREADS=24 -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main -d overv/openstreetmap-tile-server run
-
+```
 ### AUTOVACUUM
 
 The database use the autovacuum feature by default. This behavior can be changed with `AUTOVACUUM` environment variable. For example:
 
     docker run -p 80:80 -e AUTOVACUUM=off -v openstreetmap-data:/var/lib/postgresql/10/main -d overv/openstreetmap-tile-server
 
-## Benchmarks
+### Benchmarks
 
 You can find an example of the import performance to expect with this image on the [OpenStreetMap wiki](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql/benchmarks#debian_9_.2F_openstreetmap-tile-server).
 
diff --git a/openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire b/openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4694b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire
@@ -0,0 +1,207 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+set -e
+
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# AJT - change directory to mod_tile directory so that we can run replag
+# and other things directly from this script when run from cron.
+# Change the actual location to wherever installed locally.
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+export PATH=.:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
+ACCOUNT=renderer
+cd /home/$ACCOUNT/src/mod_tile/
+
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Extra OSM2PGSQL_OPTIONS may need setting if a tag transform script is
+# in use.  See https://github.com/SomeoneElseOSM/SomeoneElse-style and
+# http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:SomeoneElse/Ubuntu_1404_tileserver_load
+# The database name always needs setting.
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+OSMOSIS_BIN=osmosis
+OSM2PGSQL_BIN=osm2pgsql
+TRIM_BIN=/home/$ACCOUNT/src/regional/trim_osc.py
+
+DBNAME=gis
+OSM2PGSQL_OPTIONS="-d $DBNAME -G --hstore --tag-transform-script /home/renderer/src/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto.lua -C 2048 --number-processes ${THREADS:-4} -S /home/renderer/src/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto.style"
+
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# When using trim_osc.py we can define either a bounding box (such as this
+# example for England and Wales) or a polygon.
+# See https://github.com/zverik/regional .
+# This area will usually correspond to the data originally loaded.
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+TRIM_POLY_FILE="/var/lib/mod_tile/data.poly"
+TRIM_OPTIONS="-d $DBNAME"
+#TRIM_REGION_OPTIONS="-b -14.17 48.85 2.12 61.27"
+TRIM_REGION_OPTIONS="-p $TRIM_POLY_FILE"
+
+BASE_DIR=/var/lib/mod_tile
+LOG_DIR=/var/log/tiles/
+WORKOSM_DIR=$BASE_DIR/.osmosis
+
+LOCK_FILE=/tmp/openstreetmap-update-expire-lock.txt
+CHANGE_FILE=$BASE_DIR/changes.osc.gz
+EXPIRY_FILE=$BASE_DIR/dirty_tiles
+STOP_FILE=$BASE_DIR/stop.txt
+
+OSMOSISLOG=$LOG_DIR/osmosis.log
+PGSQLLOG=$LOG_DIR/osm2pgsql.log
+EXPIRYLOG=$LOG_DIR/expiry.log
+RUNLOG=$LOG_DIR/run.log
+
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# The tile expiry section below can re-render, delete or dirty expired tiles.
+# By default, tiles between EXPIRY_MINZOOM and EXPIRY_MAXZOOM are rerendered.
+# "render_expired" can optionally delete (and/or dirty) tiles above a certail
+# threshold rather than rendering them.
+# Here we expire (but don't immediately rerender) tiles between zoom levels
+# 13 and 18 and delete between 19 and 20.
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+EXPIRY_MINZOOM=13
+EXPIRY_TOUCHFROM=13
+EXPIRY_DELETEFROM=19
+EXPIRY_MAXZOOM=20
+
+#*************************************************************************
+#*************************************************************************
+
+m_info()
+{
+        echo "[`date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"`] $$ $1" >> "$RUNLOG"
+}
+
+m_error()
+{
+    echo "[`date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"`] $$ [error] $1" >> "$RUNLOG"
+
+    m_info "resetting state"
+    /bin/cp $WORKOSM_DIR/last.state.txt $WORKOSM_DIR/state.txt || true
+
+    rm "$CHANGE_FILE" || true
+    rm "$EXPIRY_FILE.$$" || true
+    rm "$LOCK_FILE"
+    exit
+}
+
+m_ok()
+{
+    echo "[`date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"`] $$ $1" >> "$RUNLOG"
+}
+
+getlock()
+{
+    if [ -s $1 ]; then
+        if [ "$(ps -p `cat $1` | wc -l)" -gt 1 ]; then
+            return 1 #false
+        fi
+    fi
+
+    echo $$ >"$1"
+    return 0 #true
+}
+
+freelock()
+{
+    rm "$1"
+    rm "$CHANGE_FILE"
+}
+
+
+if [ $# -eq 1 ] ; then
+    m_info "Initialising Osmosis replication system to $1"
+    mkdir $WORKOSM_DIR
+    $OSMOSIS_BIN --read-replication-interval-init workingDirectory=$WORKOSM_DIR 1>&2 2> "$OSMOSISLOG"
+    wget "http://replicate-sequences.osm.mazdermind.de/?"$1"T00:00:00Z" -O $WORKOSM_DIR/state.txt
+    mv $WORKOSM_DIR/configuration.txt $WORKOSM_DIR/configuration_orig.txt
+    sed "s!baseUrl=http://planet.openstreetmap.org/replication/minute!baseUrl=https://planet.openstreetmap.org/replication/minute!" $WORKOSM_DIR/configuration_orig.txt > $WORKOSM_DIR/configuration.txt
+else
+# make sure the lockfile is removed when we exit and then claim it
+
+    if ! getlock "$LOCK_FILE"; then
+        m_info "pid `cat $LOCK_FILE` still running"
+        exit 3
+    fi
+
+    if [ -e $STOP_FILE ]; then
+        m_info "stopped"
+        exit 2
+    fi
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Add disk space check from https://github.com/zverik/regional
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+MIN_DISK_SPACE_MB=500
+
+if `python -c "import os, sys; st=os.statvfs('$BASE_DIR'); sys.exit(1 if st.f_bavail*st.f_frsize/1024/1024 > $MIN_DISK_SPACE_MB else 0)"`; then
+    m_info "there is less than $MIN_DISK_SPACE_MB MB left"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+    seq=`cat $WORKOSM_DIR/state.txt | grep sequenceNumber | cut -d= -f2`
+
+    m_ok "start import from seq-nr $seq, replag is `osmosis-db_replag -h`"
+
+    /bin/cp $WORKOSM_DIR/state.txt $WORKOSM_DIR/last.state.txt
+    m_ok "downloading diff"
+
+    if ! $OSMOSIS_BIN --read-replication-interval workingDirectory=$WORKOSM_DIR --simplify-change --write-xml-change $CHANGE_FILE 1>&2 2> "$OSMOSISLOG"; then
+        m_error "Osmosis error"
+    fi
+
+if [ -f $TRIM_POLY_FILE ] ; then
+  m_ok "filtering diff"
+  /var/lib/mod_tile/data.poly
+  if ! $TRIM_BIN $TRIM_OPTIONS $TRIM_REGION_OPTIONS  -z $CHANGE_FILE $CHANGE_FILE 1>&2 2>> "$RUNLOG"; then
+      m_error "Trim_osc error"
+  fi
+else
+  m_ok "filtering diff skipped"
+fi
+    m_ok "importing diff"
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Previously openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire tried to dirty layer
+# "$EXPIRY_MAXZOOM - 3" (which was 15) only.  Instead we write all expired
+# tiles in range to the list (note the "-" rather than ":" in the "-e"
+# parameter).
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+    if ! $OSM2PGSQL_BIN -a --slim -e$EXPIRY_MINZOOM-$EXPIRY_MAXZOOM $OSM2PGSQL_OPTIONS -o "$EXPIRY_FILE.$$" $CHANGE_FILE 1>&2 2> "$PGSQLLOG"; then
+        m_error "osm2pgsql error"
+    fi
+
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# The lockfile is normally removed before we expire tiles because that is
+# something thatcan be done in parallel with further processing.  In order to
+# avoid rework, if actually rerendering is done rather than just deleting or
+# dirtying, it makes sense to move it lower down.
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+#    m_ok "Import complete; removing lock file"
+#    freelock "$LOCK_FILE"
+
+    m_ok "expiring tiles"
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# When expiring tiles we need to define the style sheet if it's not "default".
+# In this case it's "ajt".
+# Previously all tiles on the "dirty" list between $EXPIRY_MINZOOM and
+# $EXPIRY_MAXZOOM were dirtied.  We currently re-render
+# tiles >= $EXPIRY_MINZOOM and < $EXPIRY_DELETEFROM, expiry from 14 and
+# delete >= $EXPIRY_DELETEFROM and <= $EXPIRY_MAXZOOM.
+# The default path to renderd.sock is fixed.
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+    if ! render_expired --map=ajt --min-zoom=$EXPIRY_MINZOOM --touch-from=$EXPIRY_TOUCHFROM --delete-from=$EXPIRY_DELETEFROM --max-zoom=$EXPIRY_MAXZOOM -s /var/run/renderd/renderd.sock < "$EXPIRY_FILE.$$" 2>&1 | tail -8 >> "$EXPIRYLOG"; then
+        m_info "Expiry failed"
+    fi
+
+    rm "$EXPIRY_FILE.$$"
+
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Only remove the lock file after expiry (if system is slow we want to delay
+# the next import, not have multiple render_expired processes running)
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+   freelock "$LOCK_FILE"
+
+    m_ok "Done with import"
+
+
+
+
+fi
diff --git a/run.sh b/run.sh
index 247c15e..a3d552e 100755
--- a/run.sh
+++ b/run.sh
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ if [ "$#" -ne 1 ]; then
     echo "    run: Runs Apache and renderd to serve tiles at /tile/{z}/{x}/{y}.png"
     echo "environment variables:"
     echo "    THREADS: defines number of threads used for importing / tile rendering"
+    echo "    UPDATES: consecutive updates (enabled/disabled)"
     exit 1
 fi
 
@@ -34,6 +35,20 @@ if [ "$1" = "import" ]; then
     if [ ! -f /data.osm.pbf ]; then
         echo "WARNING: No import file at /data.osm.pbf, so importing Luxembourg as example..."
         wget -nv http://download.geofabrik.de/europe/luxembourg-latest.osm.pbf -O /data.osm.pbf
+        wget -nv http://download.geofabrik.de/europe/luxembourg.poly -O /data.poly
+    fi
+
+    # determine and set osmosis_replication_timestamp (for consecutive updates)
+    osmium fileinfo /data.osm.pbf > /var/lib/mod_tile/data.osm.pbf.info
+    osmium fileinfo /data.osm.pbf | grep 'osmosis_replication_timestamp=' | cut -b35-44 > /var/lib/mod_tile/replication_timestamp.txt
+    REPLICATION_TIMESTAMP=$(cat /var/lib/mod_tile/replication_timestamp.txt)
+
+    # initial setup of osmosis workspace (for consecutive updates)
+    sudo -u renderer openstreetmap-tiles-update-expire $REPLICATION_TIMESTAMP
+
+    # copy polygon file if available
+    if [ -f /data.poly ]; then
+        sudo -u renderer cp /data.poly /var/lib/mod_tile/data.poly
     fi
 
     # Import data
@@ -62,6 +77,11 @@ if [ "$1" = "run" ]; then
     # Configure renderd threads
     sed -i -E "s/num_threads=[0-9]+/num_threads=${THREADS:-4}/g" /usr/local/etc/renderd.conf
 
+    # start cron job to trigger consecutive updates
+    if [ "$UPDATES" = "enabled" ]; then
+      /etc/init.d/cron start
+    fi
+
     # Run
     sudo -u renderer renderd -f -c /usr/local/etc/renderd.conf
     service postgresql stop