When an event occurs that causes a road to be closed, it is important to know that we have a closure system in place to properly close the road and return the road to normal when the closure is over. There is no need to take the closure into your own hands using restrictions.
Closure or Restictions?
There will be times we will use restrictions to a road being set for closure. If the road has a Scheduled Restriction that occurs like clockwork restricting access during certain times of the day or months of the year, it would be a restriction. You can also set Turn Restrictions for turns that need to be restricted certain times of the day. These are all restrictions because they are standard road limitations that occur on a regular basis.
On the flip side, if the road is being closed due to an event such as construction, a parade, or a natural disaster, we need to create a Closure. Keep reading to see if what you have needs to have a closure in place.
When is a closure required?
This is really dependant on a few simple requirements. First of all, does it require a direction of traffic to be impacted at all? This is important because an actual lane of traffic closed does not necessarily mean a closure is needed if traffic still goes the direction(s) it would normally travel; however, this still could be important if access from the side of the road that is closed is restricted (such as exit ramps and connecting streets). One thing to consider is that a divided highway, in most cases, needs no closures if it affects one of the sides of the highway and all traffic is moved to the other lane unless there is a significant split in the road. In a lot of cases, nothing will need to be altered to make this work.
Bottom line: if the closure will restrict access to a certain direction of the road, restrict access to the road completely, or has a limited connection to a closed road it will require a closure.
Tools
In Minnesota, there is not a single location to find all road closing; however, we have included a series of links to multiple city, county, and state resources. These Tools will help find any upcoming closures throughout Minnesota. Also, check our Current Closures to see if an anticipated closure is already being recognized.
Report a Closure
If you know of an upcoming closure that is not listed, or Waze is trying to drive you through roads that should be closed (and we are not too late) Let us know so we can add it to the system. Click Here To access our forum for Road Closure Reports.
Update Requests
An Update Request (UR) 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.
In Minnesota, we have adopted a 1/6/15 system for response to Update Requests. We use this system based on the colors the UR icon would be based on the Interface Elements.
Day 1
A yellow update request has been open for 0-5 days. This is the first day the editor responds. We typically want to answer a report within 24 hours, but this should be at least attempted within the first 3 days. This will show a yellow UR on the map.
Example
""Thank you for reporting a [general error] through the Waze app. The report was not clear on what exactly happened at [this location]. Could you please explain the issue that occurred further?""
Day 6
An orange update request has been open for 6-14 days. If the reporter has not commented after 6 (to 10) days of this initial comment a message should be sent reminding the reporter that we need more information about the problem they encountered to fix the issue. This will show an orange UR on the map.
Example
"We apologize that we have not heard back from you to explain the issue further. We will need a response to fix the issue further. This ticket will be closed in 9 days if no response occurs."
Day 15
A red update request has been open for 15 days or longer. If the reporter still has not commented after 9 more days (15 days since the initial comment) a message should be sent telling the reported that we were unable to fix the problem and this report is being closed. The Update Request then needs to be closed as Not Identified. This will show a red UR on the map.
Example
"We apologize that we still have not heard back from you about the issue. We have not found the issue and it could be that your map is giving you incorrect information. Please go to the Waze App, then go to Settings / Advanced Settings / Data Transfer and then Refresh Area of My Map to see if that improves anything. Due to no response, we are closing this ticket. You can submit another report if the issue is still present"
Rural Areas
While we would like to have every inch of Minnesota covered with a network of editors, we are not currently at that level of community involvement. The 1/6/15 rule has been set as the standard for areas with Area Managers and active editors; However, in many areas, there is very little editor coverage. That being said, use good judgment in these areas as there may be Update Requests that are greater than 30 or even 60 days old. There is no penalty or negative perception to answering these, quite the opposite. Please, still take the time to send the reporter a message to see if they can remember the issue and allow them additional time to provide more information. In these areas, we will follow a 1/15/30 rule. Day 1 is the first day an editor responds. Day 15 is the warning message stating the issue will be closing in 15 days. Day 30 to close out the ticket.
Example:
"Thank you for your report! I apologize for the late response, we are volunteer editors and in some areas there are not many of us. You reported a General Error near [this location] in [City], Minnesota way back on 9 Dec 14. Do you remember what issue you encountered?"
Unlock Requests
Sometimes, you will come to an issue with a road, but you do not have a sufficient lock level to fix the situation. Click here if you need to setup an unlock request. Please pay attention to the top of this forum where it will give clear instructions on how to create an unlock request.
If you want to check to see if there are any Unlock Requests that you can handle, Click Here to check all open reports for Minnesota. Anything showing the green check mark means it has been completed.