Roads View history

This page covers road names for the United Kingdom. For other countries see here.

Introduction

This forms part of UK Editing Best Practice. Editors are encouraged to follow these guidelines.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations should be used where possible to conserve screen space.

Road Name	Abbreviation	TTS Expansion?
Avenue	Ave	Yes
Boulevard	Blvd	Yes
Broadway	Bdwy	Yes
Circus	Cir	Yes
Close	Cl	Yes
Court	Ct	Yes
Crescent	Cr	Yes
Drive	Dr	Yes
Garden	Gdn	Yes
Gardens	Gdns	Yes
Green	Gn	Yes
Grove	Gr	Yes
Junction (as in Motorway Jxx)	J	Yes
Lane	Ln	Yes
Mount	Mt	Yes
Place	Pl	Yes
Park	Pk	Yes
Ridge	Rdg	Yes
Road	Rd	Yes
Saint	St.	Yes
Square	Sq	Yes
Street	St	Yes
Terrace	Ter	Yes
Valley	Val	Yes

Notes:

Roads like "The Avenue", "The Green" etc should not normally be abbreviated.
TTS = Text To Speech

Road types

The following convention should be followed where possible, although it is acknowledged that you may need to deviate from it in some circumstances.

Waze Road Type	UK Road Types
Freeway	Motorway & Motorway class A roads
Major Highway	A-class roads that are classified as Primary Routes
Minor Highway	Non-primary A-class roads
Primary Street	B-class roads and unclassified roads carrying heavier traffic, often seen on Ordnance survey maps in yellow or orange.
Street	Urban Streets, Low traffic rural roads
Narrow Street	DO NOT USE (See UK forum discussion )
Private Road	Road with no access for the general public, or public road with legal prohibition on through routing in both directions (normally "private road" sign, "no motor vehicles except for access" sign, or a closable gate)
Parking Road	Roads within a car park, or other places where we don't want Waze to monitor speed and potentially generate a traffic jam report, in particular petrol station forecourts. See Car Park page for details and advice about not overmapping car parks.
Dirt Road / 4x4 Trail	Unsurfaced road, or a ford (water-splash) which is often impassable for normal cars.

For Freeways leave the City Name as "None", so as to stop the City Names smearing. For Motorway class A roads, name as Axx(M). (No spaces).

Non-drivable - Walking Trails are a group of non-drivable road types available in the WME found under the Roads menu. However, the user experience can be improved by the correct use of the Footpath type.

Primary Route Network

The PRN is defined by A roads which connect between Primary Destinations, and have green signs along them. We use the Ordnance Survey Maps as our source for this classification, i.e. the roads marked in green colour. The WMEOpenData extension for Firefox and Chrome can overlay this same data directly within the editor.

Exceptions

As with any rule, there will be some exceptions. There are two specific scenarios which are allowed to deviate from the OS map:

If there's an A road that connects between motorway or PRN networks, then it should also be Major Highway
If a section of primary road is restricted to some traffic, and there is another primary route nearby, then it can be demoted to Minor Highway

Exceptions shall be discussed on the forum and documented below, and can be locked to a higher rank.

Exception	Reason
A1080 London Colney Bypass	Joins A414 to M25
A2, Chatham	The High Street is restricted to buses only. The A2 New Rd to the south is the preferable route.
A20, Maidstone	Not PRN - Several bus/taxi only roads adjacent to the A20.
A256, Dover	The entire A256 road network south of A2 is not PRN. See Sabre for details.
A283, Leatherhead	Link between A24 PRN and motorway junction.
A3, Portsmouth	The main "Out of City" route is signposted North along Hope Street.
B306, Roehampton	Turning right from A205 to A306 is only possible via this small loop of B road.
A3216, Battersea	Shown as PRN in the OS data, but not signed as a primary route in Streetview imagery. Would benefit from site visit to confirm current status.
A4146/A509 Milton Keynes	Joins A5 (PRN) to A421 (PRN) to M1
A43, Corby/Kettering	New road, compliments the now renamed A4300. Road signs are green, OS zoom7 shows both old and new roads as PRN.
A46, Grimsby	Link End of A46 shown by OS as PRN with A16 as Major Highway. These roads are signed as green.
A460, Cannock	Newer A460 replaces older A4601
A527, Newcastle Under Lyme	This is not part of the PRN anymore since the link road was built to the A500 at the junction of Grange Ln and Church Ln.
A56, Bury	Joins the PRN between A56 and A58.
A577, Atherton	Eastern and southern section passes through a pedestrianised zone. Bag Ln at the western end is signposted as PRN and needed to complete the route eastbound and westbound.
A58, Bury	Joins the PRN turning right from A58 to A56.
A6, Loughborough	The central area of Loughborough has been pedestrianised and the A6 has been diverted along an upgraded relief road.
A6097, Newton (Notts)	The spur of the A6097 is not shown as PRN but roads are green on signs, the link roads going to/from A46 (S) Ramps have also been set as major highway to ensure a continuous route (these were formerly the A46). Note: The Aerials and Street-view here are significantly out of date following the upgrading of the A46 to Dual carriageway, the current layout was checked with a physical site survey.
A614, Howden	OS Map doesn't connect the primary route to the motorway, leaving a gap that could affect routing.
A617, Mansfield	A617 is shown as Primary in some sources, and does have green signs
A664, Manchester	Streetview of Rochdale Rd shows it has white signs, so it is not PRN.
A665, Manchester	Recent roadworks have made A665 - Miller St one way, so it makes sense to promote the other way.

Dual Carriageways

The following convention should be followed where possible, although it is acknowledged that you may need to deviate from it in some circumstances.

When to Split

A road should be split into be 2 one-way roads if any of the following conditions are met:

The central reservation is > 5m
There's a visible gap between average of all GPS traces
It is split by physical barrier (Concrete, Armco, pedestrian barrier etc)

Pedestrian refuges and painted road separation (cross hatching that can be driven over) should not normally be split. Be aware there are a lot of these that were created as split roads during the UK Base-map import, these usually need merging to be a single two-way road.

Naming Convention

Whenever possible, on split roads, name carriageways with the direction of travel. Insert the direction of travel at the end of the road name:

Examples:
1. M1 (N)
2. A4 (W)
3. M25 (ACW)
4. A57(M) (W)

This makes traffic and incident reports much more useful and helps with navigation.

Ramps (to/from Motorways and Dual Carriageways)

Where should I start the sliproad?

For best navigation and routing advice, sliproads leading:

off a Motorway or Dual Carriageway should be placed to start where

The lane begins to divide (in the case of 3/2/1 markers)
There is a gantry over the carriageway, where the 1 mile, 1/2 mile etc finishes. This will usually be the last gantry before the actual junction and will be the one without a distance marker on it

on to a Motorway or Dual Carriageway should be placed where

the road first joins the adjoining road, i.e. just after the chevrons/lane dividers

Ramp naming

Ramp names to be short, useful and unambiguous. Names should not include Junction to nor Entry to. Cardinal directions (N, S, E, W) should only be included if they are included on signs and provide clarity. Like other abbreviations, the > character can be used, and is read out as towards, this should be used only if needed. Entry and Exit should be considered equal for the purposes of naming, and should be named to give the most useful instruction to the driver. Ramps should not have a City name, this helps prevent city smudge.

Junctions with numbers

All segments from numbered junctions should be mapped as Ramps to ensure exit instructions are given
The name should begin with the exit number and then the name of the road it leads to, ideally without cardinal directions
When motorways split, short wayfinder ramps should be used so that these names don't appear in the App
Do not include junction numbers on entry ramps.

Format:: J[number] to [simple road name]
Example:: J4 to A464

Junctions without numbers

If a ramp connects directly to exactly 1 other road, then it can be left unnamed, the instructions will naturally take on the name of the next segment
It may be desirable to name the ramps more simply to remove cardinals or road names
If the ramp connects to a roundabout, then an unnamed segment will often give optimal instructions. If the routes away form the roundabout are not signed from the main road the ramp should be named to match the exit signs.

Format:: [simple road name]
Example:: A1 rather than A1(M) (N) or A1 - Great North Road

Disambiguation

Where a ramp forks into two directions, then the ramp names should include cardinals (if signed) or towards a city based on the signage
If a city name is used only one city from the directional sign is to be used, preferably the one which is listed first

On the M25, where relevant, directions to Heathrow or Gatwick should take precedence

If the section of ramp before a fork is particularly short, then the preceding segment can be left unnamed with any junction number written in the forked segments

This does result in longer announcements, so should be avoided if possible

Where both directions of a road are connected to a roundabout, then ramps can be disambiguated using > city instead of cardinals, as per the signage.

Format:: [simple road name] ([cardinal direction]); [simple road name] > [city name]; Junction > [city name] if connecting road has no name / number
Example:: A1 (N) & A1 (S); M62 > Manchester & M62 > Hull

Junction Naming

Major junctions, particularly on motorways, should be labelled with a landmark.

Under no circumstances should the road name or city name fields of a segment be used for naming of a junction.

Road Name & Number

Where a road exhibits both a road number and name the following convention should be used:

Examples:
1. A7 - Old Dalkeith Rd
2. A1 - Edinburgh Rd

This gives both a consistent appearance and allows a straightforward transfer if/when Waze UK moves to the official Department for Transport designations.

The same can also be said for adding the direction of travel on single/dual carriageways with an A-road designation in the form

<Number> (Direction) - <Name>

Examples:
1. A2 (W) - Dover Rd
2. A229 (N) - Cuxton Rd

Roundabouts

Roundabout segments should typically remain unnamed. If the roundabout does have a proper, signposted name, then this can be labelled using a landmark of "Junction/Intersection" type that fills the centre of the roundabout. This only applies to big roundabouts that are larger than 30 metres.

For further advice on editing roundabouts, see Editing Junctions and Roundabouts

Lay-bys

Lay-bys should only be included where there is significant separation from the main road (e.g. grass, trees or a physical barrier) in a similar way to deciding if a road is dual carriageway.
Routes in and out should be mapped with roads of "Parking Lot Road" type, with appropriate directions and turns.
The Lay-by road should have no city name and the road name set to "[P]".
A Landmark is not required for lay-bys.

Lay-by Examples:

This example shows significant separation between the road and Lay-by:

This example is only separated by the distance between the (N) and (S) carriageways which is the minimum that you should map. Note that the "parking lot road" is mapped over the area that vehicles park on to improve separation:

This example does not have enough separation for the Lay-by to be mapped:

(Note: this example is zoomed in closer that the previous two!)

Bypass or By-pass?

Bypass.

Railways

Railway lines should be drawn in as Railroad type roads, particularly if there are other streets nearby. They appear in the client, and they keep Wazers on trains from polluting the local speed data.

Tracks should be drawn as simply as possible - they do not need to be accurate out in the country where no one can see them, and it is not necessary to map individual tracks through a station.

Segment Properties:

City: No City
Name: No Name
Type: Railroad
Direction: Two way
Level: Ground, unless actually going under or over over another road
Lock: 3

Railroad segments can be connected to the road network at level crossings, without any risk of Waze routing drivers onto the tracks. The extra granularity of segments at the crossing provides more accurate routing information. All turns should be enabled (no red arrows please).

Check that:

"old" roads, with addresses along them, are broken by segment nodes each side of a railway bridge. This enables Waze to navigate to addresses adjacent to the bridge when Network Rail close the road for engineering works.

"new" roads, with no addresses along them, are not broken at railway bridges, since such roads are always closed junction to junction, and intermediate nodes are a nuisance (sometimes necessary for speed limit changes, but not for bridges).

Railways which are underground (i.e. through tunnels) must not be mapped.

For more detailed information on railways, please see the Road_types/USA#Railroad but be aware that the guidelines written above take precedence.

Note: it is often necessary to split railways lines at county boundaries to avoid smudging the county name into the wrong area.

« Back to UK Editing Best Practice

Search