Waze Automation

Map Editors Community General Topics
1

Just wondering if any Waze devs can cast a light on how automated the process of map building is.
I have the following questions:

  • If no one records new roads will the server create them automatically after a set number of gps tracks have been created from people just having the app open?
  • If a roads position is incorrect will the server update it if enough people drive the road
  • When you record a new road does the user need to log on and create it or will the server create the roads
  • Will the server correct turn restrictions and road direction if people just drive the routes
  • I notice when you record a road the server sometimes ingores most of what you have recorded, and labels what you have as red, green, yellow or a red circle, what do these all mean?

Essentially if no one ever edited online, or recorded roads, how much of a map would we have? because so far it seems fairly heavily reliant on manual editing.

Have looked around alot and there doesn’t seem to be much information for new users to understand exactly what Waze is doing.

2

It’s pretty much all-manual for everyone outside of the states.

We’re lucky enough to have a base map that is edited by simply driving all over it. I would think that this is exactly why Waze was originally released (excepting the Israeli version) only in the United States with the base map, because there is an assumption that users around the world won’t want to build the maps themselves. But a dedicated userbase started, and now entire cities in Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and others are nearly completely mapped because of those few dedicated users.

So yeah, the casual user doesn’t have much to do there, unless someone already created the routes. I’m assuming you’re not in the US because you include the situation of no roads being there at all, which is only true of the newest developments in the States. It’s easier for us here, but the efforts of everyone else should by no means go unnoticed.

3
  • it doesn’t
  • usually, it should. I’ve seen roads change shape automatically after people simply drove them enough.
  • if you keep recording ON (the bulldozer) on your client, the road is created automatically on the website (in red). If you keep it ON even when a road is already there, you get duplicate roads that you will have to delete.
  • Yes it does.
  • It should indicate the GPS signal quality.

If no one ever edits online, the maps will never become good enough “just by themselves”. There are simply too many variables (crossroads, roundabouts, bridges, ramps…) that only a human being can actually figure out.
And it would also be totally useless because no street would have a name.

For countries where maps have to be built from scratch, I’d consider
Driving : Editing=30% : 70%.
After the maps will be done (months or years, depending on your local community), it will probably switch to a more relaxing 80% : 20% (some little editing will always have to be done manually).

4

Thanks for the responses. My main reason for asking was to make sure I wasn’t wasting time on certain types of edits if the server was going to do the same thing but a bit more slowly over time.

Most roads in the area that have been recorded are not very acurate and I’ve had to check other map sources to make sense of what roads they were suppose to be. Now if the server corrects the shape and position of roads automatically it might be worth me just tagging road names at first and allowing the server to sort out the positioning over time. That is until most of the area has some rough mapping, and then I can sort out junctions etc with hopefully more acurate road positions.

5

Well, I have heard that the automatic geometry changing capability is not actually enabled right now, but it was months ago so I’m not sure. However, the ability to view GPS points makes it easy to visually average traces and disregard any bogus tracks.

6

It sure does now, and sometimes with funny results :slight_smile:

7

Very interesting thread it highlighted some concerns I was having too!

So record a road only once, and only new record when going onto a new road? I wasn’t sure at first so a few major routes I drove on had like ten red recordings and I named the roads the same thing and thought it automatically merged everything but apparently it is best to just record one route as imperfect as it may be due to some changing of lanes, not being perfectly in the centre of a lane etc and this will average out over time?

What are you guys doing for roads that start off as being without a median and then are divided and meet up again later. Any time a road is undivided, for example 2 lanes each way but just yellow line in the middle, would I record once each direction in the farthest lane and later merge the two as a single road, but then what if I am past the 10 m limit for merging? LOL!

But obviously a road that has a median in the middle of it should be recorded as two separate one ways right?

A more in depth FAQ might help with the actual recording and editing of roads so it is done consistently the right way resulting in a better database of map data. Maybe a tricks and tips section from the official waze team or just uber gurus could help set the standard and answer a lot of questions. A service like waze introduces so many possibilities but with millions of unique roads it can introduce a lot of questions too! I know there is a guide for naming roads and that is a good start!

I would appreciate more info about the automation and just how stuff works (like on tlc!).

8

I have a generic rule of thumb:
By looking at the GPS tracks, If I can clearly distinguish the 2 directions then I make 2 parallel roads:

If instead they are so close to each other than the GPS totally mixes them, then I tend to just leave it as one single road, with the “separating line” option if there’s something between them.

Obviously this is just for urban roads… major highways and freeways are always 2 separated roads.

9

Go into the view panel and select “Display as arrows” with the GPS points layer enabled. I’d bet the vast majority of those are in fact separated by direction :smiley:

10

Yeah, I’ve been annoyed lately at having to fix geometry that the server has messed up. Getting on my nerves, actually.

11

I think marking a road as “Locked” locks its geometry as well as direction. I think it’s a good habit to lock segments once you’re sure they’re right. Turn restrictions can still be lifted, but all the important stuff won’t be changed erroneously.

12

Nah, I’ve had locked roads change, too, so I don’t know what is supposed to be locked by that checkbox.

13

Well, directionality is definitely supposed to be locked…

I think I read a couple months ago that automatic geometry editing had not actually been enabled yet, though I had seen what I thought were examples of it. I considered the possibility that these changes were actually made by rogue map editors logging in to get a feel for it and messing things up.

14

You can see who edited the road last in the road details edit dialog. All the ones I’ve had to fix were last edited by me, so it’s the server screwing with things. Sometimes they’re small changes that don’t matter much, and other times they’re pretty screwy.

http://www.waze.com/cartouche/?zoom=6&lat=49.31929&lon=-124.31302&layers=BFFTFTFFFFFFFTFFFTTTTT

You can see two segments of Craig St are 1-way, and they’re locked. They’re no longer straight, as I left them. So I see they’ve been changed again by the server. Same with the segment of Jensen to the east of the Alberni Hwy. That one’s not locked, but it’s been bent southward at the Hwy intersection. Probably just from turning left there more often than going straight through.

McCarter has some weird bump in it now between Hirst and Middleton. It should be straight north from Jensen until about halfway between Hirst and Middleton when it curves west, since Middleton is a bit shorter. But there’s some weird bump, perhaps from turning left off Hirst onto McCarter. McCarter’s bendy between the Hwy and Middleton now, too. And I see the Hwy’s all bendy around there now, too, especially at the intersection of the two highways.

Geez, take a look at this mess.

http://www.waze.com/cartouche/?zoom=6&lat=49.29567&lon=-124.25463&layers=BFFTFTFFFFFFFTFFFTTTTT

That area of the hwy is always getting screwed up, and they’ve been locked for a long time now, to no avail. The two sides keep getting messed up like that, crossing over each other, directions ending up on the opposite sides of each other. Just a mess. I think this feature needs to be turned off and left off for good. Sounds good in theory, but in practice it just isn’t helping out at all.

I gotta say, at first it seemed like a good idea to have automatic geometric corrections, but after having to fix all kinds of things all over the place because of it, I don’t like the idea at all anymore, hehe.

15

Hah, no kidding. I foresee most of the automatic edits happening in places like high-speed curves on freeways and highways–the kinds of places where routing goes crazy trying to relocate you–and in just the places where you want it least.

I say disable it completely, since the editors will do a better job than any automatic process could. Barring this, “Locked” should absolutely keep the geometry from moving.

16

Not saying that it’s not the server… but I think if someone messes with the geometry of a connecting road it wacks out the other roads without saying that they edited it.

17

Nobody’s editing anything nearby. It’s the server.