Philippines/Editing resources

Map Editing Guide for the Philippines

While most of the content here on the Waze Wiki are applicable for the Philippine road network, the Waze map still needs to be tweaked and customized for the Philippines. Below is the general guideline for Waze map editing in the Philippines. This supersedes any generic guide wiki entries not specific to the Philippines.

1. Create road (whether tracing aerial images/gps points, or from recorded drives)
2. Set road type, some suggestions;
   • Freeways – Toll Roads or Expressways where a toll fee needs to be paid
   • Ramps – On and off ramps from Freeways, segments that are not at-grade or ground level, used to connect segments with different levels
   • Major Highway – DPWH Primary Roads or roads that connect cities of > 100,000 population
   • Minor Highway – DPWH Secondary Roads or roads that connects other cities (i.e. <100,000 population), ports, ferry terminals, airports, tourist service centers, and other national government infrastructure to the primary network.
   • Primary Street – Main thoroughfares of a city or municipality and/or DPWH Tertiary Roads
   • Street – ordinary street, mainly residential
   • Off-road / Not maintained – drivable roads but not used for routing, except when 'allow dirt roads' option is enabled or if destination is on the dirt road.
   • Parking Lot Road – drivable roads within a commercial or private parking lots, used for routing but with a high time penalty. If the parking lot is covered, do not create any parking lot roads or if it is a parking building or structure and it does not have a roofdeck, do not create any parking lot roads. Map only the main roads leading to and out of the parking area, DO NOT map all the lanes inside the parking area.
   • Private Road – drivable roads within gated communities, subdivisions, villages, or compounds. Not used for routing except when destination is on the private road. All roads within the area must be the same private road type. Put '(sticker required)' on the main entrances to these areas where a pass or sticker is required.
   • Ferry - Ferries that meet any of these conditions should generally not be mapped
     • • Passenger ferries without vehicles
       • Ferries requiring pre-booking
       • Private ferries unavailable to the general public
       • Ferries over two hours in duration If the ferry does not meet any of the above conditions, it can be added to the map
   • Walking Trails, Pedestrian Boardwalk, Stairway, Railroad, Runway/Taxiway – other non drivable and non-routable roads, do not map these unless they are used to landmark an area or to help in navigation. If the road is too narrow like an alleyway and only motorbikes and tricycles can drive through it, use Street instead and restrict access to it so that only select vehicles can be routed on it.
3. Set road type attributes.
   • Toll Road - Expressways where toll fees are collected
   • Unpaved - If the road is a highway, primary, or a street but is unpaved. Different from off-road where only specialized vehicles can pass through
   • Tunnel - If the road is underground
4. Set directionality (two way or one way)
5. Set the elevation level (Ground, Tunnel = -1, Flyover = 1, 2, 3, etc.). Only tunnels or underground roads are to be set to -1. If one road passes over another, the bottom road is Ground and the one that passes over is 1. Tunnels should at least be 100m in length, otherwise leave them as ground level unless they pass under a segment already on ground level.
6. Set the speed limits in accordance with REPUBLIC ACT No. 4136 Chapter IV Article 1 (Section 35) Restriction as to speed.
7. Connect or create junctions (attach to existing roads) except if these are non-routable road types like Walking Trails, Pedestrian Boardwalk, Stairway, Railroad, and Runway/Taxiway
8. Set turn restrictions and if u-turns are allowed on junctions, the easiest and fastest way to do this is to click on the junction node and hit 'w' on your keyboard. This will set all turns to enabled or green. Leaving a turn restriction disabled does not mean that Waze will not route to it, Waze can still route a turn to it since it is connected. To prevent routing, a segment needs to be totally disconnected from a junction and placed 5m apart.
9. Name the road, if you don't know the street name add the city name and mark the street name as 'None'. Somebody else could edit it. Do not leave segments in red (unnamed). Do not name roundabouts, the road name will not wrap around the roundabout segments and will not look right on the map. It will also break the routing instructions for the roundabout.
10. When naming streets, omit "City" and "Street". e.g. "Pasig City" to "Pasig" only and "Dela Rosa Street" to "Dela Rosa" only. Except when they are not "Streets" like "Kamias Road", "Aurora Boulevard", "Ayala Avenue", etc. If you are going to abbreviate, make sure you follow Waze Abbreviations and TTS standards so that our street names are ready for TTS (Text To Speech).
11. Do not split roads unless they are Expressways, Major, and Minor Highways. Even if they are Major or Minor highways, do not split them if they do not have wide median barriers. Split roads complicate routes and are harder to maintain.
12. When you are confident on an area you have mapped,lock the roads to prevent any changes or edits on the roads. While we appreciate the help of newbie waze editors in editing our maps, they are prone to creating errors if not informed and educated properly on our map editing guidelines. It would be great if we can direct them to read this guide first before they start doing any edits. Read the Phillipine Locking Policy for more details.
13. Adding Area Places, Point Places, and Gas Stations; When adding Places, make sure their location is properly identified through the add Area Places draw function and add the address in the details as well. If an Area Place will cover beyond a city's/minicipality's boundary or will cover more than one city/municipality, mark the city address as none. For bodies of water like creeks, rivers, lakes, sea, etc. mark the city address as none, this is so that their area will not be added to the city tile.
14. KISS! - Keep It Simple, Stupid! Our maps should work best if they are kept simple rather than complex, therefore simplicity should be the main objective in our maps and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.