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Do not cut, merge or disconnect any segment of a toll road, whether it is marked or not, without consulting a state manager in your state, preferably someone with access to the toll tool. Doing so may break a toll price file. See the prices section for further details. |
Waze has the ability to mark toll facilities, in order to provide better routing, pricing and other information to users. In addition to traditional toll roads, facilities that may be marked as toll include HOT lanes, toll ferries and roads through parks that require an entrance fee. Depending on the facility, this can be done by simply marking a whole segment as a toll road, or by creating a toll-free partial restriction. For either method used, the effects are identical when a user's route traverses a qualifying toll road segment. Routes that traverse a toll segment will show a toll icon on the route preview and route comparison screens in the app. An estimated price will be displayed in the toll icon, if this information has been added to Waze's toll price tool. Toll roads also affect routing in unique ways.
Routing
Toll roads have two different routing effects, dependent upon what a user selects in the navigation settings in the client app:
- When the client option to "avoid toll roads" is disabled, a small routing penalty is added to every transition from a toll segment to a non-toll segment.
- This means that the routing server may choose a free route, even if it takes a little longer than a toll route.
- This also means that the routing server may choose a route with one toll segment, even if it takes a little longer than a route with multiple discontinuous toll segments.
- When the client option to "avoid toll roads" is enabled, a large routing penalty is added to the route for every single toll segment, even in sequence.
- This means that any toll segment will be avoided if at all reasonably possible.
- This also means that given two route options the routing server will choose the one with the fewest number of toll segments, regardless of if they are consecutive or not.
Note: The penalty for "avoid toll roads" is very high, and the definition here of reasonable may seem extreme. The routing server will prefer a significant detour to avoid a toll, but not one it considers to be insane or impossible. The exact amounts of both penalties are proprietary information and are not published by Waze.
Editing
For most toll roads, all traffic must pay a toll at all times. We will call this a fully tolled road. If a road can be used for free by a subset of vehicles or at certain times, we will call it a partially tolled road.
Fully tolled
To represent a fully tolled road in the editor, click the Add restrictions button and check the Toll road attribute.
The choice of which segments to mark as toll can be made according to one of two methods. Note that within a certain area, these methods should not be mixed, because improper routing may result.
Only collection points
Under this method, only a segment (entrance/exit/highway) that actually traverses through a toll booth, collection point, or ticket dispenser is marked as toll. This means that all paths traverse a single toll segment per toll location, and they are only assessed with a single toll penalty, whether avoid toll roads is on or off. This may mean that only a single segment is tolled, or if there are parallel segments going through the toll location (e.g. multiple entrance or exit ramps, cash and pass lanes), a single segment of each path is tolled. This method works well when a driver wants to or must use a toll road, and the avoid toll roads option is enabled. This is the preferred method for most of the US.
There are a few benefits to this method, as opposed to marking every segment of a toll road.
- It allows the routing server to pick a route with lowest number of tolls along the route.
- It will apply an identical penalty to two different toll roads (assuming they both have one toll collection point) regardless of how many segments the toll road is made of. This allows two toll bridges and/or tunnels to the same destination to be treated equally; the routing server will pick the most appropriate one regardless of their individual segment count, and the .
- It reduces the likelihood of detours through rest areas, whose roads would not otherwise be tolled.
All segments
In some regions editors may choose to mark all segments of a toll road as toll. This works well for users who do not have the avoid toll roads option enabled, and multiple options exist with toll collection points spaced closely together. The routing server assesses the same penalty for traveling on any toll road in the area, because one transition off of a toll road exists for any option, and the user can decide on whichever price they are willing to pay. If this method is used, it's best to mark ramps between toll facilities as toll roads also, so that an extra transition penalty isn't applied for users who aren't looking to avoid tolls.
Partially tolled
Partially tolled roads are represented in the editor with toll free restrictions. For example, if a road collects a toll from all vehicles except for electric vehicles, a toll-free restriction may be added to specify that electric vehicles are toll-free. If the electric vehicle type is selected in the client, this road will treated like any other free road. If any other vehicle type is selected in the app, this road will be treated like any other toll road. The partial restrictions page explains in great detail how to add these restrictions.
Prices
In 2019 Waze unveiled the capability to store and display prices for toll roads. Toll price information is contained in JSON files, which are created in a special tool outside of the Waze Map Editor. This toll tool also contains documentation and a playground for the testing of price files before submission for use in the app. Since a lot of documentation about toll prices is already available in the tool, this section will provide a brief overview of the process, along with answers to any frequently-asked questions that editors may have about the feature.
Overview
Each file contains one or more tolls, and each toll contains one or more sections, along with currency, toll type (static or dynamic), rules (pay-per-section-count, entry/exit price and pay-per-section) and other info. Price information can be in different places depending on the rule of the toll. Each section contains one or more segments, and each segment is listed with a segment ID and two node IDs: the fromNode and the toNode. When the routing server calculates a route that passes in order immediately through the FromNode ID, the segment ID and the ToNode ID of a segment stored in a price file, it looks up and attempts to display a price. If any of these IDs or their order are changed through cutting, merging, disconnection or deletion, the toll price file will not work until it can be updated with new IDs and re-uploaded onto the server. As of August 2019[update] the editor gives no indication that segments have any associated pricing information, and the toll tool gives no indication that a file contains broken segments, apart from manually testing routes through specific segments. Therefore, editors must be very careful not to inadvertently break price files when working with tolls. While building price files, some editors have added map comments or higher locks on segments that they use, in order to provide some level of protection, but this has not been done universally. Each section can also be associated with a venue ID of a toll booth or other place. As of August 2019[update] the venue ID is not used in the app, and only static pricing is supported. The segment, node and venue IDs are the only common elements between the toll price tool and WME.
Pay-per-section
This is the most common rule used for toll roads. It is also called open tolling, in that traffic can come from anywhere and pay the same price.
Entry/exit price
When traffic is charged different amounts at an exit depending on where they entered, toll prices must use this rule. It is also called closed tolling, in that traffic is recorded entering a closed system at a defined point, then pays a certain amount when they exit the system that is based upon the points of entry and exit.