(In)complete guide to editing the Waze map in Ireland
Let's hit the road
Welcome! Hopefully, you are here because you want to learn more about mapping Ireland in Waze. We're glad you're here and hope you find all the information you need.
This wiki aims to lay out all the policies and editing best practices we adhere to in Ireland to keep everything consistent and of high quality across the country. It is important that you adhere to these standards to give a solid user experience for our drivers.
Editing Best Practice
Overall, we follow global best practice with some small exceptions to cover local conditions, such as for road naming. What is described here just covers local variations from practice elsewhere.
For anything not covered here, we generally follow UK best practice. For anything not documented in the UK page, we follow global best practice.
The Irish road system is broadly similar to that in the UK, except that there is less traffic and not as many motorways. The legal systems are very similar and the road rules are almost identical. Many road signs are different (but still straightforward), speed limits and distances are always shown in kilometres and roads are numbered differently. There are also some differences in Waze road naming. Most signs showing names show them in Irish and English, with a few exceptions.
Units
Speed
All speed limits were converted to kilometres per hour in 2005. The sign is similar to the UK sign (round with a white background, red border and black text), but “km/h” appears in small print beneath the speed limit value.
Distance
All distances were converted to kilometres in the late 1970s. Very occasionally an older distance sign can be found in miles, but these are getting quite rare and have a different appearance to more modern signs.
Speed Cameras
There are no single-point fixed speed cameras anywhere in Ireland any more. There is one red light camera in Dublin city centre, and the Dublin port tunnel has recently added average-speed cameras.
Generally, speed cameras have been replaced with “safety vans”. These are vans containing speed cameras that may be placed at any one of about 1000 published locations for a couple of hours at a time. Their existence does result in a lot of Waze users reporting speed cameras, but these can safely be removed from the map rather than approving them.
Naming
Languages
- All official names are shown in two languages — Irish and English — with the English name shown below the Irish name and in capital letters. This is usually the case even when the sign refers to a place in Northern Ireland.
- Where there is no English form of a name, only the Irish name is shown.
- In Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) areas, all names are shown in Irish only. These areas are mostly found on the west coast.
- In Waze, we use the name that appears on road signs, and default to the English form if it is shown.
- Some privately-developed housing estates that only show names placed by the property developer show them in just one language (usually (but not always) English). In Waze we still just show the name that appears on the signs.
Roads
- Road naming and classification DRAFT
- Locking policy TODO
- Speed limits TODO
- Junctions and roundabouts TODO
- Townlands, towns and cities DRAFT
Map Issues
Map Issues are reports by users via the app. These appear in WME as User Requests, or URs for short, and they cannot be re-opened once closed.
Out of courtesy, even if the UR is submitted by yourself, please leave a comment when closing one. This will help other editors in the area understand what might have changed.
When the last comment in a UR is older than 1 month, it should be closed in order to keep the map tidy. Always leave a comment when doing so.
If there was an ongoing conversation in an old UR, please be courteous and ask the involved users if it's OK to close. If said question is older than 1 month, it's OK to close. Always leave a comment when doing so.
Places (POIs)
Harmonisation
Below you can see the published version of our live spreadsheet. You can scroll down and right to see more information.
Telephone number format
The preferred telephone number format is according to the E.123 international standard - i.e. +353 x xxx xxxx for single digit area codes, +353 xx xxx xxxx for two-digit area codes and +353 xxx xxxxx for three-digit area codes. Besides providing consistency, this also helps international visitors dial the number. Separate the parts of the number with spaces and break up the local part of the number with spaces too using 3+4 digits for seven digit numbers, 3+3 digits for six digit numbers, but just one group of five digits for five digit local numbers.
If a freephone, local-rate or shared-cost number (1800/1850/1890) is used, try to find a normal instead as an alternative, as this will be dialable by all international users too. If there's no normal number available, then use the 1800/1850/1890 number, with formatting as per the examples below.
Examples:
| Dublin number with one-digit area code and seven-digit local number: | +353 1 456 7890 |
| Cork number with two-digit area code and seven-digit local number: | +353 21 987 6541 |
| Wicklow number with three-digit area code and five-digit local number: | +353 404 23456 |
| Mobile number | +353 87 555 1212 |
| Freephone, local rate or shared-cost number | 1800 765 4321 |
Temporarily closed petrol stations
When petrol stations are closed temporarily, remove the brand and append "(Closed )" in the place name. This way this petrol station will still appear in search results, but with the place name instead of the brand.
Independent petrol stations
When the brand of a petrol station doesn't appear the brand drop-down, leave the brand blank. This way the petrol station will appear in search results with the place name instead of the brand.
Other Topics
Notes for editors from the UK
We need your help!
Want a challenge? We're currently in the process of assigning speed limits to our major roads. If you're up for the task and would like to be assigned an area, talk to one of our Country Managers.
Resources
- Ireland forums
- Contacting your country management team TODO
Community
Can't find what you're looking for?
In case you are looking for information that you have been unable to find in Ireland's Wazeopedia, we would encourage you to look for the information on the Global Wazeopedia. If the information you are looking for is specific to Ireland and is not found in the Global Wazeopedia, we would invite you to open a thread on our local Waze forum. This way we can discuss the matter and potentially make it a policy here.
Some road names and boundaries contain Irish Public Sector Data licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. For more information see Open Data Licence.