The following terms are defined on this page to clarify the meaning of each of them as they relate to Waze. The are provided alphabetically for your convenience.
The ability of a smartphone to translate a user's voice commands into actions on the device
BGS - Big Green Sign
A large green sign is the US standard road signage for exits and other information.
Candies, bonus candies
Small candy shaped icons that appear on the Waze client app. Drive over them to collect the points associated. See Road candies for more information.
Carpool, carpool lane
A vehicle with 2 or more occupants. Also known as HOV Lanes and Transit Lanes, are lanes restricted for the use of cars carrying a specified number of occupants. See Carpool lanes for more information.
CDP - Census Designated Place
A United States Census Bureau term for a concentration of population that lack a separate municipal government, but otherwise resemble incorporated places. It is sometimes added to a city name with that classification if there are multiple cities in the same state with that name.
Central reservation
Strip of land or barrier separating a dual carriageway. Also known as a median.
Cookie munching, cookies
Cookies are the dots on unconfirmed roads (sometimes called pacman roads). Cookie munching (or road munching) is driving over such roads and earns points. It also confirms the road is drivable for the Waze server. See What are those dots... for more information.
Dead-end node
This is an endpoint node found at the end of a segment without another segment connected to its end, when the other endpoint node of the segment is connected to one or more other segments.
Directionality
Whether a road is one-way, two-way or Unknown.
Divided highway
See dual carriageway
Dual carriageway
A road or highway in which the two directions of traffic are separated by a barrier, strip of land, or other obstruction (known as a central reservation or median). In Waze, such roads may be represented by parallel segments, one for each direction, but this should only be done under certain specific conditions.
Editable Area
A defined distance around the drives you have taken with Waze running within which you have rights to edit unlocked objects. See editable area for more information.
Endpoint node
Also called an end node is found at both ends of a segment, is visible only after selecting a segment while in WME, and when joined to other endpoint nodes create a junction.
Motorway; the major road system in your country. See freeways for more information.
Geometry
The layout or shape of a segment. Each road is made up of one or more segments. The segments are made up of one or more straight line sections. These sections can be short, effectively allowing curves to be created in a segment. See Editing existing roads for more information.
Geometry node
Segment geometry nodeLandmark geometry nodeWhen editing a segment or Area Place, large white circles appear where the segment changes direction ultimately altering its shape. Click and drag them individually to alter the geometry of the segment or landmark. Press the d key while the mouse is hovered over them to delete the geometry node. Alternately hold the d key and then move the mouse over the nodes you want to delete.
The smaller white circles between the geometry nodes are "inter"-geometry nodes. When you click and drag an inter-geometry node, it becomes a larger geometry node and two more inter-geometry nodes appear halfway between each side again.
The Global Positioning System is a satellite based system used by navigation devices to locate the device anywhere on the globe. Applications like Waze use this information to provide turn-by-turn information.
See the GPS disambiguation page for links to the various related Waze topics.
Grade
The level or elevation of a road with respect to surrounding roads. So a road would normally be at level grade. A road going underneath in a tunnel would be a -1 grade. A road going over would be a +1 grade. At complicated junctions such as freeway interchanges there can be many levels. So on a flat map we assign levels to show that while the roads cross, they do not connect because they are at different heights or elevations. See At-grade connectors for more information.
HOV, HOV Lane - High Occupancy Vehicle
A vehicle with 2 or more occupants. HOV Lanes, also known as Carpool Lanes and Transit Lanes, are lanes restricted for the use of cars carrying a specified number of occupants. See Carpool lanes for more information.
IGN
Editors paid by Waze to make updates to the map. See IGN for more information.
IL
Israel. Standard two-letter ISO code, which also refers to the routing and editor infrastructures which is distinct from Rest Of World and North America.
Illinois. Standard postal code for the state of Illinois in North America.
Inter-geometry node
A "grab handle" that allows you to create a new geometry node. When you drag an inter-geometry node, it bends the segment at that point; when you release it, the inter-geometry node has become a new geometry node.
Inter-geometry nodes appear on road segments and area places (landmarks). They will only appear when the segment/place is selected and the mouse is hovering over it. They appear midway between each existing pair of adjacent geometry nodes, alloeing you to bend the shape midway between existing bends. In the case of segments, they also appear midway between the endpoints and the first existing geometry node, or, if there are no existing geometry nodes, midway in the segment.
Intl or INTL - International
International abbreviation used to refer to the non-North America server infrastructure and location. See also #ROW
Junction
The point where two or more road segments connect at their ends. It is sometimes called a 'junction node' or 'junction point', but should not be confused with other types of node.
Junctions look different depending on the situation:
Selected and editable segment junction
Selected and uneditable segment junction (no permissions to change due to locks)
May refers to road elevation or the WME Zoom Control. See Level for other similar uses of the term.
Map issue
A button on the Waze client app to indicate there is a problem with the map. See Update Requests for more information.
Map tile, tile
The Waze map is divided into a grid using 1km-square areas which are called tiles or map tiles. Changes to the map are processed on a per-tile basis. Changes to any part of a map tile causes Waze to mark the tile as changed and it will be rebuilt in the next map update cycle.
Median, median barrier
Strip of land or barrier separating a divided highway or motorway. Also known as a central reservation. See Dual carriageway.
Motorway
Freeway; the major road system in your country
Munching
Driving over roads which have not previously been driven (pacman roads). See cookie munching for more information.
NA - North America
Abbreviation used for the servers that cover the USA and Canada maps. It does not include Mexico.
nanoRep
The automated support system managed by Waze directly. It provides information and basic troubleshooting information on Waze. It may have newer information not yet updated in the Wiki. See the nanoRep support site for answers to Waze questions.
Starting point for a driving route, with the destination being the ending point.
Pacman roads
Unconfirmed roads marked with dots (cookies) that have not been driven upon since being created or significantly edited in the Waze Map Editor. Driving over these roads earns you points and turns your car icon into a Pacman-type character that "munches the dots." See cookie munching for more information.
A browser link (https://...) that shows the map with the same view as the user who created the PermaLink. Location, zoom, layers, and selected segments will be the same. You can fine the icon for the PermaLink in the lower right corner of the WME screen (two chains linked together). When the mouse is hovered over the icon, press Control-C to copy the PermaLink to the clipboard or right-click it and choose copy). You can then paste the PL into an e-mail or forum message so others can access what you are seeing.
Note that you should not copy the URL form the browser address bar as a PermaLink, as it does not change as you work on the screen. The PermaLink icon always has the current PermaLink. You can also click the PermaLink icon to completely reload your current window without changing the view.
PLR
Abbreviation for Parking Lot Road.
PM, Private Message
Every Waze user has a personal mail account inside the Waze forums for the purpose of communicating with each other. See Private message for more information.
Pothole
Also called a kettle or chuckhole, is a type of disruption in the surface of a roadway where a portion of the road material has broken away, leaving a hole.
Ramp
A freeway entrance or exit; sliproad. Ramps may be on-ramps or off-ramps. Ramps used to connect roads at a different grade from the connecting road or freeway. See ramp road type and Junction Style Guide for more information.
Revcon or RevCon is short for "reverse connectivity" described immediately below.
Reverse connectivity
Reverse connectivity (or reverse connection) is a situation where a hidden turn is allowed going the wrong direction into a one-way street (against traffic), or leading the wrong direction out of a one-way street. The term is often abbreviated "revcon" or "RevCon." For more details see topic Reverse connectivity.
Road munching
Earning points by driving over roads (distance traveled). See cookie munching.
ROW
Rest Of World. One of the three separate sets of servers (infrastructure) containing Waze mapping and navigation systems. The three are Israel, North America (Canada and United States only), and the "Rest of the World," (ROW) or simply, "World." Note that Mexico is part of the ROW infrastructure, not North America.
ROW contains everything not in the dedicated infrastructure for the other two. It includes all of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand, South and Central America, and many island countries and territories.
All editing, driving, and reporting must take place on the correct server. This usually happens automatically, except for the editor, where switching to a specific destination may prompt you to change infrastructure.
Segment
Defines a section of roadway on which vehicles may travel or a pathway where only people may travel. Multiple segments are connected by junctions. For more information see Create a Road in the Map Editing Guide
A segment is defined in the Waze database as having a connection, via a junction, back to itself. That can cause routing irregularities, but also may be the future of how to define a u-turn. As of today, self connectivity is not desirable. Tools such as the Color Highlighting userscript can help identify this situation.
Sliproad
A motorway entrance or exit; a ramp. Sliproads are often at a different grade from the connecting road or motorway
Smudged city
A map problem that shows cities on the map in places they should not be, or unnecessarily duplicated. See the Smudged city topic for more information.
Also known as Carpool Lanes and HOV Lanes, are lanes restricted for the use of cars carrying a specified number of occupants. See Carpool lanes for more information.
TTS
Text-to-speech - Navigation instructions spoken to the driver by the Waze application that includes street names. Some of the "voices" Waze uses for navigation support TTS, while others can read directions but cannot give street names due to lack of TTS.
Update Request (UR)
An Update Request is a Map Issue reported by a user from the Waze client app. It is also a layer in the Map Editor. See update requests for more information.
Voice
Spoken navigation instructions. The Waze app can support several voices for each geographic location, which have different qualities (language, male or female, supports TTS or not, pitch and other sound characteristics). For example, in North America, the primary voices are Samantha and Tom, which are both English voices supporting TTS. Most voices have a "human" name associated with them, but not all, and some have novelty names, such as "Boy Band." Waze occasionally provides celebrity voices, such as Kevin Hart in late 2013.
Wayfinder
Road segments designed to give instructions that Waze would otherwise not give to drivers. This is often done where the default instructions might confuse the driver, or fail to make a correct maneuver. Wayfinders almost always occur at a fork, and use short extra segments, differing road types, specially-named segments, or all three to accomplish their goals.
Wayfinders may be used for exit-only lanes, multiple road branches, turn instructions needed where exit ramps transition to local streets or other highways, or to avoid accidentally taking any of the above. It is a complex topic, and relies on in-depth understanding of Waze's standard rules for generating instructions. See the See Junction Style Guide for more information.
Wazer
A user of the Waze application
WME
Abbreviation for Waze Map Editor, the web browser interface for updating the Waze map database.
WMECH
Abbreviation for Waze Map Editor Color Highlights. See WME Colour Highlights for more information.
Selected and editable segment junction
Selected and uneditable segment junction (no permissions to change due to locks)
Changed, unsaved junction
