So I’ve edited the northerly end of Britwell Road, as it is not paved and in parts is an interesting drive.
What is best practice for the road type for this sort of thing? Leave as a “street” but mark as unpaved, or change to “off-road / not maintained”?
https://www.waze.com/editor?env=row&lon=-1.24858&lat=51.60876&s=1128267223&zoom=6
An interesting question. At the last editors meeting I asked for clarification of the difference between the 2, both in terms of which should be used where and the difference in routing along these but didn’t get a definitive answer. I think it is still not completely clear, even to the HQ team.
My current reasoning is -
Street with unpaved ticked if it is a reasonable track and you would be happy taking a quality family car down there.
Off road / not maintained if you wouldn’t
I always though that a street with un-paved ticked would still be used as a through route, with a small time penalty added. If you mark it as Parking or Private it would only be used as a start/end point and not for any through routes.
I’m sure I read somewhere that Off-road/not maintained was intended for farm tracks in the countryside and you wouldn’t want to use it unless you were in a 4x4 or tractor?
I’m sure someone will correct me 
Jon
Thanks all, that makes sense!
There is a setting in the app for ‘Unpaved Roads’ Allow/Don’t allow/avoid long ones, so presumably having this setting set will affect routing down unpaved roads but will still allow off-road/not maintained roads if your destination is down that particular road
Some time ago, Waze HQ told us that they intended to make off-road/4x4 segments completely unrouteable. It might even have been as long ago as the Global Champs meetup in 2017. I haven’t heard confirmation since.
For the UK, at least, I don’t have a problem with that. Waze is still, theoretically, for “normal commuters”. Without a 4x4 vehicle setting in the app, I don’t think it’s reasonable for Waze to direct users down segments that are genuinely of this classification. However, I’m also aware that there are countries where the majority of roads aren’t paved; 4x4 vehicles are very common and such segments are useful.
The best thing for us is to mark it as 4x4 if it’s going to be difficult/impossible for a normal car to traverse it. If the surface is merely passable gravel/dirt, then mark it as a normal segment (street+/PLR/PR) and tick the un-paved flag. That will add a time penalty which will make Waze avoid the segment unless it provides a significantly quicker route or the destination is on it.