Road Naming
Waze uses the main street name (as shown in the editor) in both spoken and visible driving directions. When deciding how to route traffic or looking up an address, Waze will also consider alternate names for the streets. The following are some guidelines for selecting the primary and secondary names that will serve these goals best:
- If there is a route number, it should be included in the primary name, as indicated in the Route Numbering section below. For example: “NH01 - Mahendra Hwy”
- If the main name has a route number, include the name without the route number as an alternate name. For example, “NH01 - Mahendra Hwy” should be referred to as “Mahendra Highway”.
- If the road has additional names, they should be listed as alternate names. For example, consider the alternate name ICD - Parwanipur Rd, which in a township has become part of the NH41 Highway but is still used in local street addresses. This could also apply if a road name has been formally changed but the old name is still commonly used in addresses.
- If the route number is available with multiple city names but the official name is not, then only the route number should be added as the primary name.
The principles applied to road naming take into account the following:
- The name of the main street is used in the app’s instructions for turning; this is the reason we make an effort to use what is most widely observed.
- Address lookups can utilise any of the names, including the alternative ones. This is the reason why we include alternate names - to assist users in locating the specific address they are searching for.
Adding City Names
In areas where the city is known, the name of the city should be put in for all segments that are navigable (not rail). Here are the reasons:
- City names are needed on highways to expand the boundaries of Cities in remote areas, so that City names could be added to other streets in the area.
- Residential Point Places require city names to function properly. Using a city name in an alternative name to do this was troublesome since it could not be applied to segments when the primary name did not include a city name.
- City names are used in announcements such as "“Heavy traffic on near ” are not helpful if the city name is missing.
Abbreviations and Acronyms
The following abbreviations should be used where possible to conserve screen space.
| Road Name | Abbreviation | |
|---|---|---|
| Highway | Hwy | |
| Road | Rd | |
| Street | St | |
| Lane | Ln | |
| Marga | ||
| Galli | ||
| Path | ||
| Cross |