Some other countries have base maps in Waze, and there the benefit of driving along roads is about generating average speed, directionality, etc. In the UK, we need create the roads from scratch. I’ve taken this to mean someone has to drive the route with their phone and generate the GPS trace either with the stream roller turned on, or go into Cartouche with the archived route and add the new segments there. That’s seems like a purist’s approach. Where I’m the AM for (Isle of Wight), half the Island has got good aerial photography, and I could create lots of roads by hand in Cartouche without there being a GPS trace to use. Is this against either the Waze rules or philosophy? At the moment I think I’m the only regular user of Waze on the Island, and it’s not likely I’m going to drive every single dead end to get it registered in Waze, so to me the quickest way to create the map where the pictures are good is to draw the roads in Cartouche.
I do it all the time Kieron. Even in a big city like Manchester, where there are quite a few people using Waze those small roads rarely get driven and if Waze is going to be of any use then all the roads need to be on the map with the correct names for navigation.
In my area my priority has been to do the motorways and A roads and then B roads. I find working on the A-roads although very important gets you very few points as you’re dragging roads around to match the map/GPS points and only get one edit when you save. So when I get bored of that I blitz an area and do lots of edits quickly, and for me there is more satisfaction in seeing part of a map complete with all the roads, than linking town A to B with 5 miles of road.
Thanks for the replies. I shall create more roads in Cartouche in the future. I’ve finished editing the roads already in the system in the east of the Island, so have to plunge into the West Wight, which in keeping with its even more backward reputation (yes, even for the Isle of Wight), has very coarse photography. Then it’ll be back to the east to add in lots of roads, unless some people materialise with Waze on the Island in the meantime and create more traces.
In terms of points, I’ve probably just generated a ton for myself by deciding to reclassify all the A-roads and B-roads I’ve added on the Island to be in-line with the advice on the wiki.
I’ve been taking a break from editing major roads and decided to indulge myself and fully map the estate I live on, the main routes were driven but all the side roads were drawn in using lat/long on google maps as a reference as the aerial photos here are pretty poor!
I’ve been doing it too, since we got the Bing Test. I’ve mapped a few of the housing estates around here now. They are like mazes!!
I don’t think they’re many wazers in this county, much less this town. When I look at the main routes in/out of town and look at the GPS tracks, they’re almost all mine. And I can’t see myself taking the time/effort to drive through housing estates.
I’ve done the main routes in/out of town. I’ve even driven some of the smaller routes that lead to/from town.
Those are much better photos, and better coverage too. I’ve not got all of the Isle of Wight in relative high definition. Only problem I’ve seen compared to the usual Cartouche so far (only a quick play) is that the tiles take longer to load up when you scroll, but it’s manageable.
