How to identify problems that are caused by Google Maps Pins

Google Maps are still to fix this issue so you can feel free to use this as a real example and submit

Many times the reason for a UR is due to the way in which Waze gets addresses.

Waze effectively defaults to Google Maps for a location pin (GeoPin). This occurs for addresses and places.

Waze will get the Pin from Google Map and then place the pin on the Waze map, and use the nearest road to get to the destination.

If there is bad data in Google, this carries over to Waze routes.

Here is an example.

Yatala Pie Shop

Here is the entry that Waze grabs for its destination from Google.
https://goo.gl/maps/x786xKVXp8w

Here is the correct Google Pin location and Place.
https://goo.gl/maps/4UzDVAfUNAB2

Here is what Waze is doing

and there has been a Waze Place there as well for a long time

So I can’t stress enough how much Waze relies on correct Google Map Geo Pins for address and place finding.

To fix Google you locate your target then use the Send Feedback link found on the bottom right of the page.

Now if you got this far, you might have noticed when you hit "Send Feedback’ that the report popped up but the location was gone; basically the pin disappeared once you tried to fix it!!! :twisted: :twisted:

Do not fear! This sometimes happens.

Keep reading for how to fine tune that search for reporting.

This example is great for practising finding the PIN so you can report.

Once you have the bad place details, you sometimes have to refine the search before reporting.

So with Yatala, I saw the street addressing was set at “2 Old Pacific Highway”, so I used that address to search Google Maps.

That result gave me this link https://goo.gl/maps/Ycy2SfRzhpq , so once I hit ‘Send Feedback’, the ‘place’ is auto selected.

Then I often just use the “Suggest an edit to Yatala Pie Shop - Incorrect location or wrong address”

option, then choose “Marker is placed incorrectly on the map” and drag it to the correct place.

That is about it. Google will then in approve it. Add any changes to the PIN you dragged to make it ‘correct’, such as adding the correct street address. Basically, clone data from the real Google Map Pin.

Sometimes it is fast, sometimes nothing happens. Some reports will get solved months later.

You can use this same method for moving the Google Map Pin for residential addresses that route to the wrong street(such as street behind the house). Just drag the pin to be nearer the required road than the conflicting road.

Also note, if the Pin location falls on the Waze map on top of a Tunnel, regardless of elevation level, it WILL route you into the Tunnel to your destination, placing you 10m underground! This happened with the Brisbane RNA, with the Google Place Pin right in the middle of the whole complex, right above our Tunnel lanes.

Here is a UR due to Google Maps Geo Pin for an address causing it to route to the street behind. I fixed this particular issue by adding a private road that will now be the closest road for the Geo Pin to snap for routing.

Google Maps showing 62 Meir Rd pin - location nearest to Parkside in Waze

Waze UR report location

So thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope it helps you understand the limitation of Waze places when it is up against the default behaviour of the App to use Google Map Pins.

Regards.

For anyone interested here is the chain of responses for an address change in Google that was to fix a Waze UR.
Submission Ack: https://puu.sh/z1TEr.png
Success Ack : https://puu.sh/z1TDO.png

Submission to remove Google Maps segment of road creating Waze routing issues https://puu.sh/z1TFa.png

Just on this. The first couple of times I reported a map problem to Google, they took a LONG time to be handled. But later requests were handled more quickly. Frustrating, but (in the long term) there is a return on investment.