The short answer is (currently) you should set speed limits and road types for *maintained* gravel roads as if they were paved. Usually Wazers will be routed around the gravel still because Wazers travel faster on nearby paved roads, or the paved roads have a preferred higher Type.

In rural areas, where the paved route might be a few miles longer, but preferred by drivers, we can end up with gravel being the primary suggested route. Usually only happens if both the gravel route and the paved route share a common type such as Street or Primary Street. There's an editor campaign to get additional control over unpaved, non-dirt roads, as it's a known problem.

Reserve the Dirt Road type for true dirt roads, or other unmaintained roads that could be un-navigable by people without a proper vehicle. Don't use the Dirt type as a hack to try and control routing.

If you have a particular problematic area where we might need to do something special outside the norm, let me know and we'll get eyes on it.

I'll post additional information later; gotta head out the door.

Some of those roads look definitely maintained. A road not maintained by the county will generally stick out like a sore thumb; they degrade fairly rapidly. They also often have warning signs. If they're not even a county or local road, they'll be absent from the GIS resources, and we consider removing them entirely.

I'd have to check county and state law as well, but a county often has an obligation to maintain a road up until the end of the driveway for every residence (think emergency services, etc.)

Remember that Waze defaults to fastest route (not shortest), and that factors in stored average Wazer speed data as well as road Type (and other factors). It's going to generally prefer sticking on a Primary Street or better until branching off on to a Street for the last few blocks.

Reserving Dirt Road for true dirt roads ensures we can keep Wazers off the potentially impassible roads, while still mapping those roads for the entities that need to use them. Because of the street layouts, functional classifications, max speeds, etc., Wazers shouldn't be routed by Waze down a gravel street unnecessarily except in special cases. Flagging occasional maintained roads as type Dirt when they aren't Dirt also risks suboptimal routing for those that do need to take those gravel roads.

Trust me, setting all those maintained roads back to Street will be just fine 99.99% of the time, and avoids negative side-effects. If we then find a problem road, we have at least one upper-level tool at our disposal that don't require using the Dirt type as a hack to influence routing.

As far as Speed Limits go, the current emphasis to get them added to the map is so that the end-user experience is improved. Once we get into the 60% ranking for the State, we can get displays and prompts enabled in the app. It is a Waze priority, though broken map pieces always have first precedence. Definitely add/correct them as you go.

Here's the full Wiki page which includes guidance on most special scenarios: https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Speed_limits/USA

An answer to an original post question: Speed Limit does not influence the routing engine.

Another: Waze will always use a road if it's the last-ditch way to get somewhere, regardless of type. If something is only accessible by a Dirt road, even if the user has dirt disabled, they'll be directed to that road.

And, the Dirt Road wiki entry, the language on which I participated in crafting, so you can trust I've done a little research Road Types / Dirt Road

I'll make you a promise. If we find a gravel road (especially a narrow farm one) , that's set as Type Street, that Waze routes over instead of a nearby paved route, that's reproducible and has us considering hacking the map with Dirt or a high-level editor road preference, I will absolutely take that example to the campaign for an Unpaved option. I've already advocated on behalf of the Plains region for that option, for some of the same concerns you expressed. In other words, please help me break Waze so we can get the option we want [WHITE SMILING FACE]️

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Thanks for the answer. This does help some.

The specific scenario that sparked this question is in Eagle Mountain, specifically the new baseball park next to a School. GPS 40.329775, -112.019640 . The connecting road is a maintained gravel road that connects to some less maintained narrow, dirt and paved, farm roads.

If I strictly followed the guidelines and designated all of those roads as streets and not dirt roads I'm sure it would cause some confusion to users. If these farm roads were in fact designed for main traffic the app would suggest that most of the residences in that town use that road to get to their destination. This is obviously undesirable.

The solution I came up with is to keep those roads designated as dirt roads but make the connecting roads to the baseball field a main street.

It sounds simple but my thinking was more ridged in following the letter or the rule when I wrote the opening post. I thought that if I changed that specific gravel road, then I was supposed to change all of the roads because they are very similar in drivability.

Though your answer helped and I have also created a solution I would like some more clarification on the effect of speed limits when it comes to using the app. I know this should probably be on a thread of its own, but I think in this context the answers to the following questions will help others when they come to this thread about dirt roads.

More specifically:
- Is entering the speed limit in the editor important?
- Why?
- Is it important to change the speed limit of a segment if it's wrong or missing?

Thanks again for your help.