Please note UK-specific guidelines can be found here
Labeling; giving your road the correct road type
For more help on labeling roads, see Map Legend.
While editing the maps, you will notice that some of the roads are not labeled properly. This means, the road type might be wrong (a highway is marked as a street) or that one road has a few road types (a highway is marked as Freeway, highway and primary at different segments).
The importance of proper labeling is in two aspects: 1. When viewing the map, the 'bigger' roads should appear at the far zoom levels. Without proper labels, the 'zoomed out' display can be very confusing. 2. When planning a route, major roads will get priority over smaller roads. For example, 6 miles on the US Hwy 101 are better than 6 miles on El Camino Real.
When editing your area and labeling roads, please work with these definitions in mind
Freeway
These are interstates (such as I-90), highways, freeways and expressways that are multi-lane, divided roads with no stops (no traffic lights, exit and entrance from/to the road is through ramps)
Major Highway
A big highway, usually 3+ lanes, with minimal stops – mostly exits and interchanges, but possibly with some intersections and junctions
Minor Highways
Usually a narrower highway, 2 lanes or less, that has stops or traffic lights at almost every intersection, but is still a highway (minor US or state highway). These roads are generally important thoroughfare that goes through several cities or towns.
Ramps
When traffic moves between two roads or highways that are at different grades without the use of traffic lights or stop signs, they use ramps. The typical example is the on-ramps or off-ramps of a highway. Roads connecting a highway with a rest/service/parking area should be treated as ramps as well and named accordingly (e.g. "Exit to Service Area").
When traffic moves between two roads that are at the same grade, these connecting segments are not technically ramps to Waze. These cases should be treated as At-Grade Connectors.
Primary Street
These are major roads or boulevards in urban and suburban areas and have large amounts of use (such as Middlefield Rd. in Menlo Park, Park blvd. in Oakland, Constitution Ave. in Washington, DC). In less urban environments they are main thoroughfares in towns that are not US or state highways.
Street
These are normal streets that hold only a normal amount of traffic.
Parking Lot Roads
These streets are the entrances and exits, or otherwise main roads going through large parking lots to direct traffic, especially at traffic lights at major boulevards (e.g., shopping malls and commuter parking lots). Do not map the rows within parking lots because it clutters the map.
The "parking lot road" designation is also very useful for indicating segments which are driveable but undesirable for routing, such as alleyways (source: gettingthere and ircphoenix). Some exceptions for using this for alleys, are the recently popular residential design which has the main house driveway/garage be "behind" the house on an alley and not the front of the house. In these cases, it is advisable to use Private Road type.
With the current high penalty assigned to parking lot segments, Waze will do almost anything other than routing along a parking lot segment unless there is no other path at all. Using parking lot roads for ALL roads within a parking lot is not recommended as this will cause Waze to choose a route which has the least number of parking lot segments, which means it will also choose to go against turn restrictions from main roads.
The current recommendation is to use a single parking lot segment for every location which connects to external streets and then use street type segments for all main drive segments within the parking lot itself. This reduces the penalties and Waze will choose better routes within parking lots and not go against turn restrictions. But because that single parking lot segment is there, Waze should not route through the parking lot to get to other destinations.
Parking lot roads also provide the benefit of allowing turn restrictions to be properly set upon entry and exit of the parking lot. In addition, the proper use of parking lot roads can also help to avoid automated traffic jam reports as well as Papyrus Map Problems related to Wazers driving in unmapped parking lots. http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13825&start=20#p117202
Service Roads
These are streets, sometimes called frontage roads, that are typically adjacent to a freeway (or major highway). These could be access roads to the highway itself, but have the property of a regular or primary street.
Private Roads
A road that is not open to the public. You can drive on it, physically, but there may be legal (and physical) restrictions or it is a privately maintained road on private land. Private Roads are also acceptable for residential areas where the garage entry for homeowners is a common alley between a row of houses. This type of back-of-house garage has become popular in recent years.
Naming: giving your road the proper name
NOTE: we are in the process of revising the names as they appear in the cartouche. In the near future we will be able to display alternate names for each segment / road, and choose which one of these is the 'common' name.
If you are not sure about changing the name of a road, it is best to ask in the forum or wait until the changes described above are implemented.
IMPORTANT! Due to upgrades in the client, some naming conventions have changed. The altered conventions will be marked with a bolded *NEW*. These changes have now been finalized. Thank you for your cooperation.
Highways
The naming of highways is, of course, somewhat more complex than that of normal roads. Therefore, conventions must be followed to assure consistency throughout the map.
NOTE: All roads in our base maps came with the names as defined in the US TIGER dataset.
However, you might notice a few problems with the original road names: Some of the names are not the 'common' names (usually, waze will display the 'name' of the hwy while most people know this hwy by its number)
On other examples, the same highway will have a different name on each side (for example, US Hwy 101 going North, and Bayshore Fwy going South).
Some roads actually have two 'common' names (for example, the NJ Turnpike is also I- 95 and both are relevant names), but currently we can only display one name per road.
For all these issues, we ask that you currently leave the situation as is. We are working on a few fixes, that will automate the proper naming and also allow multiple names for each segments (with a 'Primary' name as the one being displayed, but other names that bring up the same search results).
Highways in the United States
Certain formatting guidelines must be followed to ensure that highway shields are shown in the Live Map and in the client.
- Interstate Highways *NEW*
- Components of the Interstate Highway System should be denoted as shown:
- I-10 E for Interstate 10, Eastbound
- I-310 S for Interstate 310, Southbound
- I-35E N for Interstate 35E, Northbound (this is a rare case)
- Nearly all interstates are divided highways by necessity, and they should be drawn as such in the map for navigational accuracy.
- When two or more interstates run concurrently (one stretch of road has multiple route numbers), the segment should be named after the primary of the routes. The primary route will usually have one or more of the following attributes:
- The route whose mile markers are used for the concurrent segment
- The route whose exit numbers are used for the concurrent segment
- When the concurrency ends, the route whose path does not get signed as a numbered exit.
- The other route number or numbers can be entered as alt names via the old editor (Cartouche), but shields are currently not being generated for alt names.
- US Highways
- Federal highways should be denoted as follows. Note that the trailing N, S, E, W directionality indicator is used for highways and interstates which are split into two 1-way segments, per the guidelines.
- US Hwy 61 S for U.S. Highway 61, Southbound
- US Hwy 90 W for U.S. Highway 425, Westbound
- US Hwy 90 Bus S for U.S. Highway 90 Business, Southbound
- US Hwy 90 Alt E for U.S. Highway 90 Alternate, Eastbound
- US Hwy 199 Spur for U.S. Highway 199 Spur
- Use this format and not "US-90" or "US- 90" because this is the format that the Live Map and client will parse.
- U.S. Highways will often have local road names (such as Airline Hwy for US 61 and Claiborne Ave for US 90, among others). Use these street names as the primary name for such highways if said name is used for addresses of houses and businesses along the highway.
- State Highways
- The Live Map will parse "State Rte xx" and "State Hwy yyy" and show a sign badge. However, as different states have different naming conventions (and different shields), this is not optimal for ramps. Local naming conventions are preferred for ramps and exits; this will be discussed below. Consistency within each state is key. *NEW*
- The same note for U.S. Highways above applies for state highways. LA-308 in Golden Meadow should have "E Main St" as its primary name since that is the name used in addresses of houses and businesses along the highway.
- State routes may also be split if it meets the guidelines. Similar to interstates and US highways, state routes are named as follows:
- State Hwy 6 for state route/highway 6
- State Hwy 99W S for state route 99W, southbound
- State Rte 96 for state route 96
Exit ramps and Entrance ramps (on-ramps)
Exit ramps and Entrance ramps are to be set as Ramp road type. The name of the ramp should match the exit or entrance signage as closely as possible. Minimal disparity between sign and instruction is our goal. If done properly, the driver will not have to struggle to compare Waze's on-screen or verbal instructions with what he or she sees in real life on the road.
- If the exit sign shows a number as well as a street or highway name, the exit ramp should be named "Exit 24: Schwarzenegger Rd". *NEW*
- A colon has been added because it adds a pause, making Text-to-Speech directions easier to understand.
- If the exit is not numbered, "Exit to Kindergarten Ct" will do.
- If a single exit serves multiple roads, use a slash with leading and trailing spaces: "Exit 32: Terminator Blvd / Total Recall Rd". *NEW*
- Include everything that is present on the last sign prior to the exit. Do not combine all possible pre-ramp signage into the single ramp segment name.
- If the exit off the main interstate or highway serves multiple exits further down the road, it may be advisable not to name the first exit ramp, to name only the ramps which are the first one to a distinct destination. The Waze client will give all the proper exit and keep left or right instructions to guide the driver to the correct exit, even if the first one is not named. That said, this should only be done if the signage for the first ramp is the same as that on the subsequent, named ramp.
For entrance ramps, use this format: "to [street name] [direction] / [control city]", where applicable. For example,
- "to I-10 W / Baton Rouge"
- "to Clearview Pkwy N / Mandeville"
- "to US Hwy 90 Bus W"
- "to LA-1 Thibodaux / Lockport" *NEW*
- Similar to combined exit ramps, when multiple on-ramps combine before merging into the main interstate or highway, it is advised to name the last common ramp with the conventions listed above. This will usually be the last ramp which is the one which actually joins the main interstate or highway.
- Using "Ramp to", "West", "WB", and "Westbound" should be avoided as "WB" is pronounced "double-you bee" and not 'westbound.' Further, the "to" will be automatically omitted from Text-to-Speech instructions. Do not omit the word "to", because this could cause confusion with, say, the "Select entire street" function.
- State highways: When naming ramps and exits that lead to state highways, local naming should be used. This will maximize the clarity of navigation prompts for the majority of users in a given area. *NEW* For example,
- In New Jersey, highways are generally colloquially referred to as "routes". To distinguish from other (federal) highways, a sign for State Route 45 in New Jersey should say "to State Rte 45". In this case, the abbreviation "to SR-45" may also be used.
- In Tennessee, highways are generally colloquially referred to as "highways". To distinguish from other (federal) highways, a sign for Tennessee Highway 62 should say "to State Hwy 62".
- In Louisiana, state highways are generally colloquially referred to as "LA" followed by the highway number. A ramp to Louisiana Highway 308 should be say "to LA-308".
- Similar to exit ramps, put multiple destination information, even from multiple signage, onto the single on-ramp name. Major destinations or highways/interstates can be included, but don't go crazy and add every possible town and city in that direction. "to US Hwy 90 Bus W to I-10 W Miss River Br / Baton Rouge" is fine.
New streets
In some cases, there is no prior name since it is a new road that you just recorded. In this case, make sure to choose the proper road type.
Abbreviations
Expansion of this section is pending.
Only abbreviations that Waze recognizes should be used within the editor. Since Waze uses TTS (Text-to-Speech) prompting, it is important that the correct abbreviations are used to produce the correct speech output.
Please refer to the following forum for a "work in progress" list of abbreviations that are being tested, currently available and proposed: http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15178
Also please refer to the other various ongoing discussions regarding abbreviations and TTS in the Waze forum.
Construction Zones; naming large sections of major roads that are under construction
Basic Rules
Start by following the naming rules for your major roads. Interstate as "I-10 S". US highways as "US Hwy 90". To show that the segments are part of a construction zone, just add the suffix "CONST ZN". "I-10 S" becomes "I-10 S CONST ZN". "US Hwy 90" becomes "US Hwy 90 CONST ZN".
When temporarily re-setting road geometry, closely monitor recent GPS points as the aerial maps will likely display an out-dated view. Also, be sure to closely monitor these sections of roadway and remove the CONST ZN suffix whenever the construction is done.
Official Sources of Mapping information
Being in the Waze community of editors means sharing information you discover and learning from the discoveries of others! You can see some of the official sources of mapping information (US only) provided in the forum and feel free to add new ones.