Traffic Events View history

What is a Traffic Event?

Traffic Events can be any events with associated road closures that  have an impact on drivers in your community. TEs could be sporting events, festivals, parades, significant construction work, VIP visits, etc.

Your support of TEs ensures that drivers are informed about events to help them make better driving decisions due to nearby events and subsequent notifications.

Who can submit a Traffic Event?

Traffic Event data can originate from three different sources:

  1. Community Editors
  2. Partners
  3. Waze Crisis team who proactively source and implement closure events

How to submit a Traffic Event?

There are 3 ways to submit a Traffic Event to Waze:

  1. Partners: Use Waze feed to share closure information with Waze [Partner’s hub]
  2. Community Editors: community editors are able to create a TE in the Waze Map Editor (WME) and add closures to the event.
  3. All users send an email to: [[1]]. The email should include:
    1. The event name in English and in the local language
    2. All street names closed during the event
    3. Intersecting street where each closure begins and ends
    4. Start and end time for each closed road
    5. Start and end date for each closed road
    6. Indicate if the whole road is closed or just one direction is closed

How to create a Traffic Event in the WME?

In order to create a Traffic Event event in the WME, the users need to:

  1. Create a Traffic Event
  2. Add road closures
  3. [Optional] Send an email to [[2]] for any issues/ questions/ special requests.

Create a Traffic Event in the WME

*IMPORTANT* Before creating a new Traffic Event,  search for an existing Traffic Event.

  1. Open the WME
  2. Click the Events tab in the left side panel
  1. Click ‘Add new event’
  2. button . You will be presented with the following panel:
  1. Add event name in English - the event name should be as short as possible while accurately representing the event. Please note there is a 25 character limit.
  2. Add secondary event name in local language (optional) - the event name should be as short as possible while accurately representing the event.
  3. Fill in details of the event. The closures need to be within the event start and end time:
    1. Construction event types have no time length restriction. All other events are limited to 3 months.
    2. If event closures vary from day to day (i.e. Tour de France), create separate events by region/location. This allows us to send timely push/inbox notifications to users based on the closures they’re affected by.
  4. Click Save. You can continue making edits and then save everything all at once, or click save after you create the event.

Add road closures to the traffic event

  1. Once the event is created Turn on the following layers to the map :
  • Segments
  • Road Closures
  • Satellite Imagery
  1. Zoom-in close to make sure all segments are visible. Segments can be closed separately or as a group.

If roads cannot be crossed, the nodes must be closed too.

  1. Click on the ‘Add closure’ button.
  2. For each road closure:
  1. Description (optional) - Enter cause/Event name here
  2. Choose direction: Closure direction should be noted carefully.  If needed, choose one-way directions on a two-way road here.
  3. Add Start time & date
  4. Add End time & date
  5. From  ‘Event’ the dropdown, choose the event to which you’d like to associate your closure. If you do not see your event here, make sure your closures fall inside your event’s timeframe.
  1. Add start time and end time to the closures you added

Closure nodes - If traffic cannot cross at the intersection, mark the appropriate

node as closed. If thru traffic can cross at the intersection, leave the node open.

  1. Once the closures are attached to the event,click on ‘Save’ button
  2. * important* Once you complete adding all Road closures click on ”Submit”

Crisis Traffic Events and road closure in the WME

To add road closures directly through the WME, you will need to create a “crisis” Traffic Event (if one does not already exist) and then associate all related closures to it.

Additional option is to contact the Crisis team ia email waze-crisis@google.com

FAQs

When does Waze send push notifications for Traffic Events?

Event needs to have a significant traffic impact.

In order for Waze to send a push notification for a Traffic Event, please follow these instructions:

General guidelines:

  • All push notifications are sent in line with specific country regulations and Google internal policies.
  • A push notification can be sent any time prior to the start time of the event or up to half the time remaining in the event (i.e. if the event takes place between 6:00pm to 12:00am, push notifications can be sent up until 9:00pm).
  • Traffic Events and Road Closures must include a start time, end time and date in order to be considered for a push notification
  • Optional: Websites added to the Traffic Event must have a correct link included.

Traffic Event Naming guidelines:

  • Event has correct spelling and grammar. No special characters or numbers in the event name (i.e. $%!&*).
  • Do not include digits within the event name (i.e. NY Marathon 2022) or any time-based descriptions. Examples: TE Names with numbers like 42nd street or 50th New York Marathon can be published. Only when the year is a separate number the events won't be published due to technical limitations.
  • Ensure the title accurately reflects the event and road closures.
  • Do not add websites or links to the event name.
  • Ensure the event is real with accurate road closures.
  • Push notifications will not be sent to Traffic Events with the word “closure” (or any variation) or an event description in the name (i.e. event to support X awareness).
  • Construction events will only receive push notifications if related to bridge or highway works or if a partner/community member requests them.

Who will receive a push notification?

Drivers in the affected area of the Traffic Event.

Troubleshooting: If you encounter a case where you expect to get a notification and did not, please send the event name, date, and the username for the user that was affected to waze-closures@google.com and we will look into it.

3. Why can’t the English Traffic Event name have special characters?

Traffic Events in English cannot include special characters as the event URL does not recognize special characters. The push notification language is taken from the user’s device language, so in certain circumstances, users will receive push notifications with special characters in their local language.

4. My Traffic Event doesn’t have an English name,  what do I do?

If your event does not have an official English name, you have a few options (listed in order of preference):

  1. Translate the name as close as possible to English, while still making sense to local users.
  2. Make the English Traffic Event name generic to the event type (i.e. instead of “Flying Pig Marathon” call it “Marathon”). Leave the full name of the event in the local language field.
  3. Use the local language Traffic Event name in Latin characters, removing all special characters from the title.

7. How do I report an issue related to a Traffic Event?

In case there are closures issues or incorrect information is presented in the WME/ Waze app or live TE website please email the issue to [[3]] and include the following:

  • Date of the issue
  • The username of who encountered it
  • Name and date of the affected event
  • A description of the issue with as much detail as possible
  • Steps to reproduce (if possible)

Resources:

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