Country specific permissions

As a self-managed country, Australia has customised permissions on features which may differ from other countries and servers. This page is intended to publicly document them in a shared and easily accessible location.

Cameras

General cameras

The addition of cameras in Australia is permitted at level 3 and higher. Remember, level 3 editors and above need to take care to change the camera permissions from auto to L3.

Dec 2020: This was changed from L1 to L3 due to a huge spike in unreliable camera additions undermining the integrity of the alerts. It also aligns "creation of cameras" with the already documented "minimum lock level for cameras."

Average speed cameras / zones

Several human errors resulted in incorrectly applied zones to the map, sparking user complaints. Considering the low frequency of these zones needing to be added or changed, coupled with the difficulty in spotting these errors, from Oct 2022, the minimum lock level in Australia will increase to level 3 to align with the lock level of other cameras.

Road closures

Closures can be managed by level 3 editors and higher, with the exception of the list of editors with Real Time Closure (RTC) permissions on the Country Managers page, who can manage closures on any segment within their polygon regardless of the lock level.

Oct 2022: Dropped from level 4 to 3 to both align with the global standard and allow more editors to help with closures around the country.

Junction boxes

Junction boxes are locked to a higher level in Australia, requiring level 3 editors and higher.

Jun 2020: This was decreased from level 5 to level 4.

Oct 2021: This was decreased from level 4 to level 3 as a part of a trial. Junction boxes are having a greater role in our new mapping standards, and have become less restrictive through enhancement by the Waze developers. Australian editors now benefit by having one of the lowest lock levels for junction boxes globally.

Lane Guidance

On Segments

Lane guidance feature was released from beta Q2 2020 by Waze, initially to level 6 only, and reduced slowly down to level 4 and higher. In Sep 2020, this was further lowered to level 2 and above. This feature allows editors to manage lane guidance in WME on segments.

On Junction Boxes (Far Lanes)

A new feature released from Waze beta in 2022, tells drivers what lane they need to be in while at intersection A to correctly approach intersection B. This may apply to large and complex intersections or simply provide preferred lane guidance for a series of intersections or ramps. It requires a junction box to be used over both (or the whole) intersection/s and for lane guidance and far lanes to be configured on the path within the junction box.

While this feature is undergoing testing, and due to the perceived complexity and limited documentation, it is currently locked to level 4 and above.

On Paths (Far Lanes Version 2)

FLv2 is an extension of the far lanes feature that removes the need for a junction box to define "paths" through an intersection and instead lets an editor do it. The editor selects two segments and creates a single "path" between them, whereby lanes, far lanes, and turn guidance can be applied.

Oct 2022: Waze released this to production at lock level 5, but it was dropped to level 4 and above in Australia. We will continue to consult with the global community, assess the the risk, complexity, and availability documentation before considering further changes.

Streets

A street is a collection of one or more segments that share common attributes, such as a street names and shields.

Roadshield

This feature was released to beta in April 2021. It contains some intricacies that need to be considered when applying shields to roads, and thus the default lock was increased from level 2 to level 4 in Australia. All editors can view the settings.

Turn guidance

This feature was released to in 2021. It gives complete control to the editor over exit shields and numerous overrides, including ability to enter free text for TTS announcement on turns (of segments and paths). The ability to view turn guidance settings is available to all.

Feb 2022: The lock level was reduced from level 4 to level 3. All editors can view the settings. Instructions to correctly configure turn guidance is contained with the Turn Instructions page.

Road Width

Announced in 2021, road width is an attribute that allows editors to tell Waze how wide a road is at important intersections. Road width goes on to help improve the app's understanding of where the driver is on the road and reduces the time to recalculation should the driver exit early or miss an exit. When lanes are adjusted, road width should also be considered.

Oct 2022: Lock level dropped from level 4, the release level, to level 2.

New cities

New cities can only be created/seeded by level 4 editors and higher. You can easily request a city seed by making a post on the AU Unlock and Update Requests forum, or #city-state-issues on the Australian Discord Server. Only official cities and suburbs should be added. The official source in Australia is the PSMA data which is approved for use under External Data / Third-Party Sources Policy and How to use third-party data sources. Please also be aware of the list of Australian Duplicate Cities.

Nov 2019: Permission level increased from level 3 to 4 after a vast number of erroneous cities found in an audit needed to be cleaned up.

Railway crossing

A new feature introduced April 2020, to provide an audible and displayed alert when approaching a railway crossing. Australia has produced an initial set of guidelines for it's use here for level 3 editors and above.

Jun 2020: This was decreased from level 4 to level 3 so more editors could assist with the implementation.

Headlights reminder

Australia does not use this feature and therefore, there are no locks.

Force house numbers

Allows users to force apply house numbers to a road where a "forcible error" is raised as per errors you can force, currently limited to level 3 and higher.