DRAFT
Introduction
Roads in Ireland are largely very similar to those in the UK, and many of the editing conventions are the same. Most of the differences lie around road naming, but there's a page for that.
Since Ireland never had a base map import, all roads have to be added to the map by hand. This means that many roads — especially minor roads — are missing. All motorways and major highways are complete, however. A number of villages, especially those that don't lie on major roads are also missing. Many areas are also missing active area managers.
Priorities
In order:
Missing roads
Naturally, it's impossible to navigate efficiently (or even at all) if there are many unmapped roads. Even unnamed roads are better than no roads at all, since the routing engine will still use them.
Missing cities/towns/villages
As you add new roads or while editing existing roads, you may come across towns and villages (mostly villages) that have not yet been created on the map. Feel free to create these, but naturally check that they haven't already been created at a nearby location. A village may just consist of a couple of houses and another building, such as a post office, a pub, a school or a church. See Cities for naming guidance.
Name un-named roads
Even where roads have already been created, they may not have been named at all, or they may have been marked as having no name. Naming roads means that Waze will give more useful turn instructions that give reassurance to users that they're being routed to the right area.
Name partly un-named roads
Many roads may have some name, but might not be completed named. For example, they could have just the road number (such as "L1234") but no other part of the name (so they could be more completely named "L1234 Graiguenamanagh Rd" or "L1234 Glencormick East").
Speed limits
Motorways, major and minor highways almost all have speed limits set, but most lesser roads don't have their speed limits set. Sometimes too, the speed limits on major roads are out of date, because they were based on what was visible in Street View at the time that they were given speed limits, and the Street View images may have been updated since then.
Local oddities
Naming differences
- With limited specific exceptions, all segments should have a name
- No dashes between road number and name (eg "R123 Dublin Rd", not "R123 - Dublin Rd")
- No brackets around cardinal directions (eg "M11 N", not "M11 (N)")
Units
Distances and speed limits are always in kilometres per hour, but if you're editing near the border, note that they switch to miles per hour in Northern Ireland.
Townlands
A townland has, despite the name, nothing to do with a town. It's a historically-determined subdivision of land that generally forms part of a postal address in rural areas. It may be sparsely populated, or may not be populated at all. The main reason we care about townlands in Waze is that we use their names for road names where roads otherwise have no assigned name.
Working out what townland a road runs through can be quite time-consuming, so although it's preferred that townland names be used for road names, it's not mandatory.