Have we got all the motorways now? I guess the next project is to map all the junctions and the major A road connections 
not quite yet… give me a few hours. 
OK… finished.
We’ve just passed a milestone in the development of our UK Waze map!
Unless I’ve missed something, all the UK’s motorways are now depicted on the map, and are now rendered as two separate one-way carriageways.
More importantly, they are now also connected to each other with proper ramps.
This means that provided that you connect your local town with the nearest motorway, you will now be able to get turn-by-turn directions to other UK cities, via the motorway network.
This also means that all of us who spend our mornings and evenings stuck in traffic on the motorways can now use Waze to see how bad the traffic is going to be!
The next step to accelerating the UK’s adoption of Waze is to now correctly map all of the junctions to the motorways.
I’ve noticed lots of Wazers who have bravely dived into Cartouche, and labelled some roads, but they don’t seem to understand how to “connect” their road segments to the motorways. To help - here are some tips for making new junctions:
1.) Before you do anything, check the alignment of the existing motorway. Fire up the “GPS” layer in Cartouche, and “edit geometry” on the motorway segments if they’re slightly off. Having them in the right place is very important. Then if there’s a road that crosses over or under the motorway, do the same for that road too.
2.) Chances are, your motorway junction is probably full of junk segments. GPS really can’t handle high-speed turns on ramps, so there will be a lot of red road segments around the ramp that aren’t actually where the real ramp is. The BEST way to handle these is, IMHO, to just delete all of them around the ramp because they’re very unlikely to make for a good ramp, but you can’t do this unless you’re area manager so… ask to be the area manager for that area! (email alpha@waze.com). Otherwise, just leave them there and wait for someone else to become area manager and let them do it…
3.) Make your slip roads. Roads going to, or leaving from motorways need to be labelled as “ramps”. If you’ve driven near the junction, you should be able to “add road”, with the road type “ramp”. Make sure it’s a one-way road (that’s the default) and draw it along where the ramp should be. If you’re not sure exactly where the slip road is, look at the GPS points.
4.) Now, the most important bit… to “connect” the slip road to the motorway or other roads, you need to work out exactly where the slip road will join/lead off from the motorway. Go to that road, and highlight it. Then click on “split road”. This will split the motorway into two segments. Then… to teach waze which segments lead onto which segments, click on the segment you would be driving FROM, and then CTRL-Click the segment you’d be driving ONTO. A new option appears which allows you to “connect roads in order” - choose this. You’ll then notice the segments move slightly and will join up provided they’re close enough to each other for Waze to work out how they join. If you then have the “highlight connectivity” option chosen, you should be able to click on the segment you drive ‘from’ and notice that the ‘to segment’ should now be in green…
5.) Do the rest of the ramps. If your junction has a central roundabout, you may want to start with that, however you won’t be able to make an exact circle, or to make it a circle as Waze can’t cope with circular roads. Leave a small gap, and then split the circle in a few places where the ramps will be joining/leaving. Once the circle is in at least 3 segments, you’ll be able to close it up using the “connect” feature as above.
6.) Label the ramps according to the style listed in the Wiki.
If you need help, and you’re in the UK - click on the “superpermalink”, copy the URL, and send me a private message with your question, and I’ll try to help you get the junction just right!
zzyzxuk
Hi, quick hello as I signed up this weekend.
Have updated and corrected the geometry for the M4 just north of Bristol and removed all the mis-recorded tracks where the Ring Road runs along side the motorway and started updating the ring road and adding roundabouts. Should be able to map the rest of the north part in the next few days.
Ahem. I’ve found out how to delete these, even without being area manager (although I probably should send the email asking for management rights).
a) If the road is connected to another, then select it, and the intersection node, then disconnect them.
b) Edit the geometry of the road, and delete all but two of the geometry nodes, so you’ve got a short, straight segment (note! Of course, you can delete the nodes along the road, straightening out the bends. But you can also delete the end nodes, shortening the road itself)
c) Use “Add new feature” to create a new road segment which leads towards the segment you’re trying to delete. Edit the road properties to make sure the two segments match (same road type, city, street name etc).
d) Select your new segment, then the existing segment, and connect them.
If you’ve done this properly, the existing segment will be merged onto your new segment, with no interesection node: just a single segment. Since you created the new segment, you get ownership rights, and can delete the whole thing.
If it’s gone wrong, an intersection node will appear, and you can only delete your own, new segment.
(sometimes when joining two two-way roads, a restricted turn arrow will appear, incorrectly showing you can’t get from the second part of the road back onto the first part. This will disappear when the road is deleted. Although you might need to change the map zoom to get it to redraw).
Hi All,
I was having a look at M1 J19 - complete arse of a junction as it also joins the M6.
I notice that the layout of the M1 in that area in no way matches the gps arrow routes of wazers. In fact further north around J20 it could be out by nearly 100 metres.
I’m reluctant to go fiddling as I’ve only driven it once since I joined but could somebody go back and have a look and decide if it needs moving please.
Thanks
Paul
Great minds think alike. I came up with exactly the same method while editing some junctions on the M1 in the Nottingham area the other day
It still seems a little odd that I can delete all but the last two nodes of a road, but cant remove it completely. For now I’m reducing them down to small 2 segment pieces, moving them clear of the motorway and just marking them for deletion. I’ll try the new feature method to clean some of these up.
Despite my best efforts people keep coming along and messing up the M4 & M5 though, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a ramp deleted or a single direction segment turned into a 2-way. 
I can’t account for why ramps are being deleted, but single direction segments can be turned into 2-way automatically by the system, especially on dual carriageways where GPS inaccuracies can fool it into thinking a user is travelling on the opposite carriageway. If you set the ‘locked’ checkbox on one-way segments, that should stop them from changing to two-way.
Does anyone have any thoughts on motorway juntions as roundabouts? Most of the juntions under the motorways are typically just a collection of road segments instead of proper roundabouts. This tends to mean that nav directions just keep telling you to keep left, keep left, instead of take the 3rd exit. I’ve toyed with the idea of replacing these with proper roundabouts, but as they’re rarely circular and more typically stretched in one direction, they wont accurately represent the GPS tracks.
So this does work, however with a slight caveat. The new road you create needs to be longer than the old road section, otherwise the road doesn’t transfer to you and you cant subsequently delete it.
Jim
Hi Folks,
Firstly I’m relatively new here, but well done for the hard work you put in getting the motoways mapped.
I’m after a little help - can anyone with permissions at the M6 / M42 interchange sort out this problem where the M6 (N) and M6 (S) have been linked together at J4. I started but realised I haven’t got the rights for this. I also notice that Northbound is a 2-way road.
Secondly I noticed recently driving from M6 J18 down to M6 J15 that most of the time Waze had me driving on the M6 (N) while I was heading southbound. My iPhone sit’s in a Tom Tom cradle with external GPS so I think that it’s the road lanes which are not aligned correctly. Additionally the Northbound seems to have 2 roads on top of each other each with different directions.
Is there anyone working in these areas that can help?
Lastly I think there are some simillar problems in my home area (M6 from M54 to M42) and I was thinking of resetting the directions then unlocking the road segments to allow Waze to get them aligned to the GPS tracks automatically - is anyone else working in this area, or has any views on this idea?
Thanks
Steve
Just had very similar problems driving between Edinburgh and Inverness. There are no AMs llisted so I’ve just requested the whole route be added to my AM list. Will take some work (especially as there are little or no aerials along the route) but that’s exactly the sort of route that needs to be solid!
Regarding the driving on th wrong side, in my experience nobody seems to remember along these routes to set the “Locked” status of one way sections and so waze will gradually unlearn the directionality!
Again, get yourself listed as the AM and get stuck in! Seem to be a few new AMs recently willing to put in some hefty legwork! I’ve seen your name at the top of the points list several times in recent weeks!
Yes, I think I need to do that - I was hoping to find an area manager local to the problems who was willing to help, but I think it’s easier to sort it myself as the main routes have plenty of GPS tracks to work from. I did drive it and mark the problem yesterday so maybe a local AM will spot it before my permissions get set.
I am at the stage at the moment where I’ve already had my area expanded quite a lot and feel overwhelmed by the task we have ahead. I guess that the enthusiastic few will pave the way for the majority in the future, and that the major roads are the first that need to be sorted out.
I was on holiday last week in Northumberland and the A1 up there is in a poor state, but I just became increasingly frustrated by my lack of permissions to sort it out, so it will have to wait for a regular in that area to start the work.
I am off on holiday again next week and I think I might pre-request the area I am visiting so I can keep myself occupied while I’m there.
Yeah I requested extra areas to give variety too. Sometimes I’m in the mood for the detail of urban streets, other times I’d prefer to do some larger scale main routes like the notorious A9 up to Inverness which is in a horrific state on waze and in real life! 
OK my area has been significantly expanded.
The M6 at J4 has been corrected, and the geometry for the M6, M6 Toll, M42 interchange has been reworked and aligned to the GPS tracks.
I’ve also correctly created the Roundabout above M6 J4 - but not yet had chance to sort the A446.
It appears that much of the local motorway network doesn’t align to the average of the GPS tracks (I thought the Waze servers should sort this automatically) resulting in wrong directions and additional new roads being recorded so I will try to find the time to work through the length of the M6 Toll and the M6 from J4 to J13 in the next few days. My permissions should let me sort correct the M6 up to Manchester now as well.
Any feedback after the changes appear in Livemap & Client would be appreciated.
Does anyone have a view on this? I am going to run in to the same problem as I start to tidy up local connections from M1 J33 to Sheffield Centre (I just applied for area manager of this area since I travel it most days. Only just found out about Waze but love the idea). Roundabouts make more logical sense for directions but not all roundabouts a circular. Do the Waze team have any guidance on this?
They should be roundabouts, no doubt about it. It’s a pain in the arse to edit the shape and fiddle with them to make them right, but when done they’re so much better for navigation.
Can you make roundabouts non-circular then? Or do you just go for best fit?
Sure, just edit the road geometry as for any other road. Just don’t delete the centre node (junction) and you’ll be fine.