🇲🇰 Wazeopedia - General mapping rules and standards in Macedonia

[TriRIK]

Hello everyone,

I am opening this topic in order to have the standardization of the road network in Macedonia for Waze purposes defined in one place.

First, something important

The goal is not to physically model the roadway lane by lane. Such an approach often leads to unnecessary complexity — which implies a cluttered map, confusing directions, and much, much (and even more!) extra map maintenance work.

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Based on data from the official road map of the Public Enterprise for State Roads, categorization should be performed according to the following model:

Categorization in Waze Map Editor (WME)

• A-roads (Motorway) – marked with green signs Freeway
• A-roads (Expressway, trunk road, or other) – marked with blue signs Major Highway
• Old A-roads (sections replaced by new expressways) Minor Highway
• R1 (Regional road of the first order) Minor Highway
• R2, R29 (Regional road of the second and third order and roads connecting sites of cultural and historical value) Primary Street
• R1, R2, R29 (Mountain section) – most likely unpaved sections Check Unpaved or change the type to Off-road / Not maintained
• Other roads and roads leading to villages Street

Categorization of other roads in cities:

• For major city streets use Primary Street
• For narrow streets (Narrow Street):
  • One-way street with a width of less than 2 meters.
  • Two-way street with a width of less than 4 meters.
• Others are marked as regular streets Street

If a street on the ground is not in good condition (for example: unpaved road, dirt road, or cobblestone), the Unpaved option should be checked.

Naming Rules

To maintain consistency across the entire map, please follow these rules:

Roads (A, R, and E categories): All designations for roads in the A and R categories, as well as E designations for European corridors, are written in Latin script and should not have a city (select “None” for city in the editor).

• Correct: Name: R1101 / E75, City: None (No city)
• Incorrect: Name: Р1101 (with Macedonian Р), City: Bitola
• Roads through settlements without streets: If the road passes through a settlement where there are no defined street names, both variants should be added to the segment (as primary and alternate names).
  • Example: You should have R1101, Bitola and R1101, No City.
• Street Naming: The primary name of all streets must be in Cyrillic. For each street, it is desirable to add an alternate name (Alternate Name) in Latin with the following guidelines:
  • The name should be the Macedonian language written in Latin script (transliteration), not an English translation. For example, it is correct to write Skopje Zapad, Skopje, and not Skopje West, Skopje.
  • Transliteration should be done exclusively according to the rules for personal documents (e.g., “ch” instead of “č”, “dj” for “џ”, etc.), and not according to ISO 9 or school transliteration. This is for simpler and easier searching and typing with an English keyboard on a phone or in a car, as there is no official Macedonian Latin keyboard.
  • The city assigned to this alternate name should also be written in Latin script.
  • If there is a need for other languages (for example, English or Albanian), they are added as separate alternate names on the segment itself.

Example for a street that is part of a regional road: If we take “Partizanska” street in Bitola as an example, which is part of the regional road R1101, the naming should look like this:

• Primary name: Партизанска, City: Битола
• Alternate name 1 (Latin): Partizanska, City: Bitola
• Alternate name 2 (Albanian): Partizanska, City: Manastir
• Alternate name 3 (Road number): R1101, City: None

Closed Streets (Permanently Closed / Roadwork)

When editing closed streets on the ground, you should implement the following steps on the segment:

1. Change the segment type to Private Road.
   • This is to achieve a better and clearer visualization of closed roads in the app and in WME.
2. In the street name (both primary and alternate), add the prefix 🚧 [Construction Emoji] before the original name (e.g., 🚧 Партизанска).
3. Access restrictions (Restrictions) must be added in both directions.
4. It is desirable to place a Map Note at the location with a short explanation of why the segment is closed, so other editors have insight.

This specific procedure using Private Road and restrictions for closing streets is a temporary workaround until an appropriate official system for Road Closures is obtained.

Places

For the correct use of “Point” or “Area” for locations on the map, please check and follow the following official guide in detail: Waze Discuss - When to use Area or Point

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More Information

• Editing manual - Waze Community Wazeopedia
• Best map editing practice - Waze Community Wazeopedia
• Official Interactive Map (WebGIS) of the PE for State Roads
  • If the system asks for a login, enter the username and password: public.
• Official system of the Agency for Real Estate Cadastre
• Wikipedia: Roads in Macedonia — Categorization from 2011

Although these categorization rules are already generally defined, the topic is open for discussion and your suggestions.