Map tiles are part of the core of the Waze Map.
Theory of operation
The Waze map is divided into a grid using 1 km-square areas which are called tiles or map tiles. Changes to the map are processed on a per-tile basis. Changes to any part of a map tile cause Waze to mark the tile as changed and it will be rebuilt during a map update cycle.
Updates
When certain items in the map are edited, they cause Waze to incorporate the changes from the offline editor database into the live map database during the next update cycle. That process will only include changes from map tiles that were triggered by certain edits for a tile update. Not everything that gets edited will trigger an update.
Note that because some things do not trigger updates on their own, Waze will also cycle through a percentage of the tiles each map update cycle and eventually update all the tiles. The process generally takes 10+ days.
Confirming Updates
To display the most up-to-date map tiles within the client app, a user may need to force a map update (i.e., creating a route that passes within the vicinity of the desired tile or the use of the “Refresh map of my area” general app setting).
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On occasion, LiveMap has been observed to visually update less often than the app client, and its display can vary at different zoom levels when this occurs. If confirming recent changes to the map tiles, the app client should be used. |
Trigger updates
The following edits are known to trigger a map update for anything else that changed in the same map tile.
- Adding a new road segment, including pedestrian path, roundabout, or junction box
- Most edits to an existing segment:
- Geometry changes to a segment
- Street/Alternate/City/State name, including shields
- Road Type
- Road Details (Unpaved, Tunnel, Headlights required, Near a carpool/HOV/bus lane checkboxes)
- Routing road type
- Road partial restrictions (including toll road checkbox)
- Direction
- Speed Limit
- Road locks
- Road elevation
- Lanes and/or Road width
- Most changes to Junction Arrows:
- Turn allowed
- Turn instruction
- Turn partial restrictions
- Difficult turn
- Voice prompt
- Adding a Permanent Hazard, including cameras, railroad crossing, school zone, and other items on the Hazard menu
Non-trigger edits
The following edits will not trigger an update of the tiles they are included in. Some of them may not be seen in the client until the tiles are updated automatically on the regular cycle.
- Adding or editing House Numbers in WME are not dependent on tile updates.
- They will be included in the next house number index update. Performing a trigger updated is not needed. See the House numbers page for more details.
- Real Time Closures (segment or turn) will not trigger a map tile to update.
- Certain triggering edits that change segment ID and/or junction node ID will interfere with the ability to add a real time closure until the tile has updated. See the Real time closures page for more details.
- Adding or editing a place is partially reliant on a tile update.
- Place details and navigation updates go live immediately.
- The place name index (used when searching for the place by name) is updated separately on a schedule, and is unaffected by the tile build.
- The polygon and name displayed on the client map for area places is only updated with a tile build. To expedite an update of an area place polygon on the client map, perform a trigger update.