Places/Car Parks

These are the updated UK guidelines for mapping car parks in Waze, as of February 2017.

When to Map a Car Park

If there is a distinctly-marked area where cars can park, separated from the road and with its own driveable segments, it should be mapped.

If the car parking spaces are accessed directly from the road, this is on-street parking and should not be mapped, whether or not there are car park signs. On-street parking will be a future phase of the Parking Project.

Aims of car park mapping

• We only want Waze to navigate users into their destination car park. There is no requirement to navigate the best route through a car park, Waze has no idea where the empty spaces are. We want users to concentrate on driving within the car park without being distracted by their sat nav.

• We want Waze to be able to navigate users out of a car park to their next destination. In a small, simple car park a single segment may be sufficient. In the interest of simplicity, it is okay to map a Parking Road down the centre of a row of spaces or even the entire car park, rather than following the driving lanes.

• We want to ensure that Waze captures users that are within a car park so they don't get erroneous navigation instructions from adjacent roads. This may mean mapping segments across parking spaces at the edge of a car park. It is beneficial in large car parks to map a few internal roads to give a relatively direct route through the car park but bear in mind the limitations of mapping any roads in multi-storey car parks.

• Should there be minor mapped destination points within a car park (collection points, pop-up businesses, etc) then mapping should reflect this to allow Waze to navigate correctly.

How to Map a Car Park

Mapped Car Park

Mapping

All mapped car parks must be areas, editors can only create car parks as an Area polygon within the WME. Car parks should be mapped to the edge of the drivable tarmac.

Note: Car parks imported by Waze or created via the App are shown as Points, these will then be highlighted by Map Problems after being detected by automatic systems and should be converted to Areas.

Underground car parks

Underground car parks should be mapped as an area that matches your best estimate of the underground parking area. However, the boundaries of the polygon should reach to the point where entrance/exits road pass underground, so as to be able to capture Wazers entering/exiting the car park.

Lay-bys

Lay-bys along the side of major roads should not be marked with a car park landmark, but should instead be mapped only with parking lot roads in accordance with How to classify and name roads.

Naming

Name the car park using a sensible name that indicates it's a car park, eg. Queen Street Car Park, Oxford Park & Ride, etc, if it run by a company add this to the start, eg. NCP Tanner Row Car Park. This is particularly important when car parks include the name of a venue or location to ensure it is distinguishable in the search results. Do not use the [P] prefix.

Car Park, car park, Carpark, Parking..?

Car Park

Parking lot roads

Parking Lot Road segments should be added, but only the minimal amount required to allow navigation into and out of the car park and give an impression of the car park layout.

• Do not draw every single row within the car park - excessive segments will be deleted!
• Parking roads should not be named, as it looks better to have a label on the landmark
• Parking roads should never be marked as a "Toll Road"

Too many mapped segments

Sufficient mapped segments

Navigation points

Set the navigation point at the entrance, on the first segment of the car park, not the road outside. This will enable Waze to navigate to the car park, including the turn into it, and then announce you have arrived, leaving the user to find a space without further instruction. Should the car park have more than one entrance, each entry point should be mapped with a navigation point. Each navigation point should be named as simply as possible to differentiate them .

Car park type

Set the Car Park Type, this is important as Waze should not offer Restricted nor Private car park types to users when nearing their destination.

• Public: Unrestricted access If you can park and then go where you please it is classed as Public, the majority of Council managed car parks are Public. Where a car park is associated with several businesses you should use your best judgement.
• Restricted: Public access with some restrictions (customers, visitors, partons, etc) Frequently car parks associated with supermarkets, retail parks and other businesses have notices displayed stating that the car park is for customer use only, these are classed as Restricted.
• Private: Limited access (residents, employees, etc) Car Parks that are clearly signed as staff / residents only are classed as Private, these types of car parks often have barriers or gates across the access.

You may wish to use the WME Color Highlights script to help visualise car parks of different types.

Operator

The Operator field should be set if it is owned and run by the Local Council or a car park operator like NCP.

Do not set the operator for regular car parks that are owned by a business and provided for customers.

For any car park run by the local authority (councils) the operator should be set to Local Council. Please do not submit requests for individual councils to be added to the operator list.

Cost

The Cost field should be set to Free for car parks that do not charge; for those that require payment it should remain blank. Without the ability to enter actual prices the options available are subjective and based on the judgement of the editor, for example, visitors to London would find all prices Expensive but comparing prices within a limited area the cheapest prices would be classed as Low.

Opening hours

Opening hours should be set based on the ability to access the car park and not when parking charges apply.

Attributes

All other attributes should be filled in as required to provide as much information as possible about the car park.

Imported Car Parks

At the start of the Parking Project, Waze imported many car park places from an external supplier. They were all imported as points, probably due to the nature of the available import data, and have consequently all generated Map Problems. There appears to have been no effort to match imported car parks to existing Waze places, so there are many duplicates. The location of the points seems to be mostly at car park entrances, which will help with determining that location.

• Some imported points are nothing more than on-street parking with a Pay & Display meter. These should be deleted and the MP marked Not identified.
• If the car park should be mapped and the point is not a duplicate of an existing car park, convert it to an area and map it as above. Close the MP as Solved.
• If the imported point duplicates an existing Waze place, make sure any useful information is copied to the existing Waze place. Then delete the import and close the MP as Solved.
• If you notice any issues with the imported car parks, please submit them to Waze via this form.

Editors should also read the Car Park Guidelines for the Parking Project on the UK forum