As some of you know, yesterday a new section of the M11/N11 opened in Wicklow, between Rathnew and Arklow. I'm pleased to report that Waze was routing over the new road at 7pm on the dot, when it opened to traffic, while Google and Bing maps have yet to show the new road. (Apple Maps is showing it as of today though, which is good).

The mapping of the new section isn't perfect (yet), so if any of our editors have been using the new road and are familiar with it, feedback would be more than welcome. In particular, we have yet to get these details confirmed:

1. whether this is a motorway (M11, freeway road type) or dual carriageway (N11, major highway road type).
2. The designation of the old N11 road; it's currently set to R772, but this was a guess that needs to be confirmed.
3. How the old N11 road is attached at both ends of the new road.
4. Some of the ramps and other road linkages may still be missing.

I'd like to thank mapdevil for getting hold of the plans and mapping the new road segments, as well as for tracking the temporary road changes during the construction of this new bit of road. I think we're doing a good job of keeping Waze very up to date with new road construction around the country. Arthur O'Hara has had a few other schemes up and working as soon as they opened too, such as the N5 Ballaghaderreen bypass.

For future reference, here's what we did for this project, which might be useful for future new road projects. There may be more efficient ways of doing this, but it worked well in this instance. This does assume that there's a map tile update every 1..2 days:

1. During the construction phase, as existing roads are moved around to allow for construction, keep the alignment of these roads up to date.
2. About a week before the new road opens, create new road segments for the new road, but don't connect them to any existing road segments. Give these road segments a negative elevation and no name. This is so that they don't distract drivers too much when they appear on the map.
3. About 1..2 days before the new road opens, connect the new segments to existing road segments.
4. Immediately after doing this, create closures on the new road segments (you need to get an L5 editor to do this) that expire at the opening time of the new road.
5. On the day of the road opening, name the new road segments and set their elevation to ground (or whatever other elevation they should have in case of overpasses).
6. At the same time, rename the old road segments if necessary and change their segment type.
7. Test the routing of the new road with Live Map and with the app, and check it out in person to look for any missing connections or incorrect road names.
8. Continue to keep an eye on the new road and correct any problems that become apparent. Use recorded drives to verify the alignment of all new road segments.

++David \ davidg666