How to Beat Epic Traffic Caused by Summer Events

With summer on our doorstep, there are bound to be lots of events happening in cities across the globe. Unfortunately, with these events usually comes epic traffic that tends to affect the whole city. Luckily the Waze community knows a thing or two about fighting epic traffic like the time we fought carmageddon in 2011 (and won). So, to help drivers avoid the traffic jams that these events tend to cause, we're unveiling a new website that is bound to become a driver's survival kit.

Annnnd we're starting off big with the Tour de France.


For the event, we're going to prepare drivers for road closures as well as provide live, real­time information on traffic conditions.

Of course, in the spirit of Waze, crowdsourcing and community, all map updates, road closures, and preparation for the project will be contributed by our amazing French community, lead by Waze Champ Marc Turpin who brought the idea to our attention.

We are very excited about this initiative and are looking forward to rolling it out in other countries soon.

So how about you Wazers out there? Any events near you that will surely cause traffic chaos in your city this summer? Help your fellow Wazers by letting us know here

Waze Map Editors Help Drivers Get Around Collapsed Bridge and Damagefrom Oklahoma Tornadoes

Maps can change in an instant. Unpredictable events such as road closures, oil spills and even natural disasters can seriously affect the roads causing drivers confusion, delays and frustration.

Luckily, Waze has a bustling community of drivers and map editors who keep the Waze map updated to reflect real-time road conditions.

Just last month, we saw two examples of how Waze's map editing community acted quickly to help drivers get around messy conditions due to a collapsed bridge in Washington State and the Tornadoes which struck in Oklahoma.

The I-5 bridge collapses

On May 23, at 7:00pm PDT, an entire section of the heavily travelled I-5 bridge collapsed into the Skagit River in Washington State, about 60 miles north of Seattle. As it turns out, there happened to be a Wazer nearby who promptly reported the incident. Within minutes, veteran Waze map editor and country manager Alan Akins received the alert and quickly went to work.

Before the day was done, the Waze map had been updated and Wazers were being routed around the collapsed bridge. The I-5 Bridge is scheduled to re-open again sometime in mid-June. We're confident that Alan will be ready to update the Waze map when it does.

Tornadoes in Oklahoma

Last month also saw devastating tornadoes strike Oklahoma. In response, veteran map editor and country manager Jared Peacock began updating the map in a very clever way.

First, he manipulated the unsafe roads on the Waze map editor so that people driving through the city would be routed around them, but also so that first responders and people living in the area could be routed on the perilous roads.

In addition, he set up landmarks on the map demarcating dangerous areas where he warned drivers to exercise caution.

In Jared's words: "I did not want to disconnect or delete roads because I felt people would still need them for navigation and orientation purposes.  The damage was so severe in areas that it looked like empty fields where neighborhoods once were so people needed a sense of direction through the map."

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge Alan and Jared for their extraordinary work in making the roads a little safer and easier to navigate during times of crisis.

To: Moore, Oklahoma Wazers

There are many of you still out on the roads right now. We can only imagine how difficult this time is. You are deeply in our thoughts. We are busy closing the roads as you tell us how things are changing. All Wazers can also add temporary closures as you encounter to help other wazers and responders get around.

Additionally, we have added the Open Red Cross shelters to our map so you can navigate easily if the need arises. Just look for these symbols on the map but of course be safe and stay off the roads as possible.





If you are in Oklahoma and have more shelters and aid centers you think we should add or additional roads you need help closing, please list them here.

Palo Alto Meetup Brings Together New and Experienced Map Editors

Boy, do we love meetups!

Earlier this month, a group of new and veteran map editors convened in Palo Alto to do what they do best — discuss how to create the best and most efficient community mapping initiative possible.

In attendance were special guests from Waze HQ: Co-Founder Ehud Shabtai and Community, Support and Product team members Shirli, Jonathan and Ohad.

The agenda featured wide-ranging talks that were mostly technical in nature. Everything from modifications to gas stations, turn restrictions, intersections, service roads and more map editor features and tweaks were discussed.

Highlights included a talk by CEO Noam Bardin and presentations by top map editors 'skbun,' 'bgodette' and 'AndyPoms.'

Major accomplishments in 2012 were discussed, as well as goals for 2013.

"We still have a lot more to do. It's not going to get boring," Noam said in his talk.

Map Updates Now Daily -- Worldwide!

Pop Quiz: Did you know that every time you make a map edit in the Waze map editor your edit will appear LIVE in the app within 24 to 48 hours?

If you answered no, that's okay. This is a relatively new development that we're excited to share with you guys.

In January, we announced that new and existing map editors in the United States can fix up any map issues on the map editor and see their routes improve right away in the app. Now, this rings true for map editors worldwide! 

A survey we ran in October revealed that more than 77% of new map editors sign up after encountering a map problem where they drive regularly.

Today, anyone can log on and correct any local map problems, and see how their contribution improves driving routes within days. This is a vast improvement over previous turnaround for update time, when map edits took months, and later weeks, to update.

Try your hand at map editing next time you see a road needs fixing, a parking lot needs marking or a gas station needs adding — and see your work benefit all the Wazers around you within days!

[Infographic] Spanish Community WoWs with Map Editing Campaign

What a difference a handful of motivated map editors can make!

In recent months, members of Spain's map editing community have undertaken an ambitious project to fully map out specific cities in the central and eastern regions of Spain.

The initiatives, led by two power Wazers, have been dubbed "Waze Outediting Week," or "WoW."

The project, the brainchild of Plumaveloz, a map editor from Valencia, was launched in June.

The premise is simple: users identify a city in Spain where the map needs serious work. They alert their fellow Spanish Wazers of the geographical area that needs mapping in the Spanish forum, and a small group of volunteer map editors join together to map that area.

The result is an intensive collaborative effort to fixing up the map of a certain locale — and ultimately create a better map and driving experience for all of Waze's Spanish community, which is nearing 1 million drivers!

During the first WoW in June, power Wazer Calandraca led the efforts to map the the city of Tordesillas, a city in central Spain. Six map editors undertook most of the work, with help from an additional 5 map editors on the Spanish forum.

The second WoW, led by Plumaveloz in July, rallied the same group to undertake a similar initiative for the Valencian city of Monover and its surrounding area.

The third and latest WoW, launched in late September, brought in a larger group of editors to the map editing community. Their task has been to educate one another on best map editing practices, as well as to polish up all the modifications made during WoW 1 and WoW 2, such as adding missing street/city names and segments.

With these guerrilla map editing efforts underway, it is no surprise that the community efforts in Spain are growing so quickly! Just check out a snapshot what's been going on in Spain over the last 12 months.

What do you think of Spain's 'WoW' map editing campaign? Could it be replicated in other countries?

Introducing Waze 3.6 — Prepare for the Unexpected!

At any given moment, roads are unexpectedly closed due to accidents, floods, or construction hazards — causing countless delays and unnecessary traffic.

We're very excited to announce that as of today, Wazers now have the ability to report and close roads on the map in real-time!

Enter Waze 3.6, introducing the first real-time crowdsourced solution to helping drivers navigate around road closures and get where they need to be.

With this exciting new update, drivers can now overcome any unforeseen events on the road ahead, big or small.

So, How Does It Work?

It's easy. Upon encountering a road closure, just tap the closure icon in the report screen. Choose the type of closure (hazard, construction, or 'event') and mark how long you anticipate it'll last. For extended closures, the map editing community will close the roads via the Waze map editor.





Once a road closure is properly reported, Waze will close off the road and route others around it.




Smart systems are also in place to ensure accuracy and predict reality. Waze will only close down a road once its algorithm has enough evidence to discount the possibility of error. Alternatively, once Waze detects cars driving on a closed off street, it will automatically return the road to its normal status and routing will resume as normal.

With nearly 40 million drivers and a robust map editing community, we're excited to see Wazers worldwide  joining together to make roads safer and more navigable, by making sure our maps reflect where short-term and long-term road closures are taking place — in real-time!

And That's Not All



Today's update also offers sleek new graphic overlays and map views, a newly customised message inbox with multiple message selection and last but not least . . . NEW MOODS!



Take a moment to update to Waze 3.6 on iPhone and Android — and please tell us what you think!

500 Million Map Edits in 2012

It's been a great year for Waze. We've grown faster and in more places than we ever could have imagined, and we're constantly in awe of the amazing community of drivers we have and their commitment to fighting traffic, together!

BUT this growth would have been impossible without the hard work of the incredible map editing community, without which Waze (and the map) would be obsolete.

So we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some map editing highlights from 2012, as a precursor for an even better 2013!

Sleek New Map Editor

Plans to overhaul the Waze world map editor began as early as last January, when our attempts to create a more intuitive user interface began. After releasing a revamped version, we published a full video to get new map editors acquainted.

In October, we revealed that our map editing community is growing quite fast, with a 40% month-over-month increase in new editors. The increase was likely attributed to the new and improved map editor, a higher growth rate in drivers using Waze and increased efforts on our part to make map-editing a more user-friendly experience.

In November, the older map editor (affectionately known as the "Cartouche") was officially retired. The now-official map editor was rolled out in its place, newly designed for new map editors to be able to "jump in" and edit, with features such as "play mode."

Meetups, Meetups, Meetups Everywhere

Meetups were all the rage, and if there is one thing we love more than our map editors meeting online, it's when they meet in real life. These gatherings produce great ideas, are a chance for the local/regional communities to summarize their objectives, and give the ordinary folk from Waze HQ a chance to meet the extraordinary map editors they work with in person.

2 'superuser' meetups, one in Paris and one in Palo Alto, set the stage for a meetup-filled year, which included gatherings in:

Czech and Slovak: The community there met first in January, and then again in June, when they launched a DIY bumper-sticker guerrilla campaign. At their last meetup in Bratislava, Waze Co-Founders Ehud Shabtai and Amir Shinar paid a visit and were awed by the great level of engagement and involvement they saw.

Hungary: The Hungarian map editing community produced a spirited Waze musical tribute! If that wasn't impressive enough, the community there also revealed a telemetry car, used to fine-tune map editing while on the road, during a Budapest meetup in June.

Meetups were also held in The Netherlands, Italy, Brazil, and more.

Finding Cheap Gas and Avoiding Toll Roads

After launching our gas station feature in the United States, we gave editors the ability to add gas stations to the map editor worldwide in July. With the ability to add gas stations in their country, map editors could expedite the release of Waze's cheap fuel locator in their respective countries.

The initial numbers were quite impressive, with editors adding more than 50,000 gas stations on the map in the first month. Today, thanks to the map editing community, the real-time gas price feature is active in more than 20 countries and counting.

Similarily, after adding the ability to add toll roads to the map editor, map editors marked more than 50,000 toll roads worldwide, expediting the release of the the ‘avoid toll roads’ feature in countries such as Australia, Belgium and Canada.

Solving Map Problems at Record Speed

New data revealed in December showed that map editors are resolving map problems at an astounding pace, with nearly 70% of system-detected map problems solved by the map editing community over a 30-day period and nearly all user-reported map problems resolved within one week.

Map Editing Rockstars

In August, we learned who some of our record-holders in map editing were, with the inaugural "Waze World Records." Revealed were the top 10 Record Holders in Solving System-Generated Map Problems, The Record Holders in Solving User-Reported Map Problems, and the Wazers That Have Logged The Most Map Edits.

Needless to say, it was a whirlwind year. We're humbled by this community's achievements and are so thankful we've all come this far. Huge thanks to our amazing map editing community for all their hard work and making Waze all that it is. Cheers!

Colombia Wazers Can Now Navigate to Cheap Gas

Wazers in Colombia can now find the cheapest, closest gas stations on or along their route, thanks to the launch of Waze's real-time gas price feature in the South American nation.

The launch makes Colombia the 24th country where the real-time gas feature is available, and the third in South America, after Panama and Brazil.

For the feature to work effectively, Colombia Wazers (and all drivers with the gas price feature) need update the prices they see at a gas station for the community. The better crowdsourcing gas price data YOU contribute, the more drivers who will get to save $$$ on gas! Do your part — so that no one has to fill up at one station when a better price is just down the street!

The Colombia launch is credited to the work of the map editing community there, which mapped out 1,200 of their countries’ gas stations in the Waze map editor.

In order for us to enable our real-time gas price feature in more countries, the map editing community needs to add up to 70% of a country’s total gas stations to the Waze map.

To update gas prices — just click on the Report button and choose Gas Prices whenever you’re at or near a gas station.

Real-Time Gas Prices Launch in Czech Republic, Norway and Panama

We're happy to share that Wazers in the Czech Republic, Norway and Panama can kick off the new year by saving some money at pump. Drivers in these 3 countries are the latest to enjoy Waze's real-time gas prices feature.

Waze's real-time gas price feature is 100% crowdsourced. This latest launch is credited to the fastidious work of the Czech, Norway and Panama map editing communities, which mapped out the majority of their countries' gas stations in the Waze map editor.

With this feature, drivers in these countries can update one another on the latest gas prices at various gas stations on or along their route.

Update gas prices each time you drive and the entire Waze community will benefit, making it easier for drivers to quickly locate the most inexpensive gas stations.

We know first hand just how negative the effect of high gas prices has had on your lives. In October, a poll we ran in Italy revealed that 70% of Italian commuters in Milan, Rome and Naples have adjusted their daily driving habits to cope with increasing fuel costs.

The real-time gas price feature is active in more than 20 countries, including the United States, Spain, and New Zealand and more. In order for us to enable our real-time gas price feature in more countries, the map editing community needs to add up to 70% of a country’s total gas stations to the Waze map. Currently, the map editing community has added an astounding 170,000 gas stations to the Waze map, worldwide!

To update gas prices — just click on the Report button and choose Gas Prices whenever you're at or near a gas station.

Do you rely on Waze's real-time gas prices?

NEW DATA: Map Editors Fix Map Problems Nearly As Fast As They'reReported

We've always been quick to point out that Waze maps offer the most updated and real-time depiction of what's happening out on the roads. The latest numbers on our map editing community prove this, while shedding light on just how quickly the resourceful group is solving map problems!

In fact, we've discovered that the community is so quick at resolving user-reported map problems that the majority of newly opened problems are resolved within one week!

We've taken a look at the number of map problems reported over the last 30 days and how our worldwide map editing community has handled them:

• They've solved nearly 70% of system-detected map problems and 100% of all user-reported map problems!

(graphs showing over 100% solve-rates indicate our map editors are solving all of this month's problems, plus backlogged map problems as well)

• In the United States, home to our largest community of map editors, 97% of system problems and 100% of user problems were resolved.

• The trend continues in Europe, where two major map editing communities, Italy and France, are resolving system-detected problems at slightly lower rates of 85% and 90%, but are similarly closing out 100% of all user-detected problems.

• South America's largest communities, Brazil (chart below) and Chile, also lag in system-detected problems, with 65% and 38% of those problems resolved, respectively. But they make up for it in their swift solving of user-reported problems, with Brazil solving 97% of all problems, and Chile solving 100% respectively.

This data shows just how astonishingly fast the community is working, and thanks to them, Waze maps are more 'real-time' than ever. If you report a map problem, chances are it'll be resolved within a week or two. Our data shows that 64% of all user reported map problems are solved within one week, another 9% within two weeks, 5% within three, 4% within four weeks and 18.5% are solved after one month.

Feeling inspired? Check out our new and improved map editor and watch this clip for a refresher on how to edit map problems.

Map Editors and Waze Co-Founders Meet in Bratislava

In the era of Skype, Google+ Hangouts and instant communication, its so easy to lose sight of the value of a good-old fashioned 'meetup.' But a handful of loyal Wazers reminded us why these gatherings are so important over the weekend in Bratislava.

Organized by Tomas Gursky (aka guri211), country managers and area managers from Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, and Austria gathered for an afternoon filled with presentations, Q&A, and discussion. The community leaders, including both Tomas and Hungarian Wazer Peter (wroadd), spoke about their respective communities and community-building in general, as well as about features and technical issues.

Tomas also spoke extensively about POI and address search and introduced a set of ideas on how to make POI search easy and intuitive for users.



Traveling from Waze HQ to attend the gathering were Waze Co-Founders Ehud Shabtai and Amir Shinar, as well as Head of Community and Support Chen Barsai and Community Manager Ori Dubnikov.

Ehud and Amir were in awe of the great level of engagement and involvement by the community of Wazers in attendance, and in their respective countries, and were glad to offer their insight on any/all issues the community sought to address.

In addition to improvements to our search mechanism (POI/landmarks), the group also requested improvements to ETA and routing issues, and in developing greater self management in different countries.

The afternoon included a presentation by Chen on Waze's global map editing community, followed by a talk led by Ori on editor permissions and the future of self-management among map editors.

This followed a Q&A with Ehud, who answered a wide range of questions pertaining to everything from client and editor issues, bugs, feature requests and more.

Check out our full photo gallery of the event.

The full list of Wazers in attendance included: (HUNGARY) wroadd, ZseZo, Kaszast, Mochrul, Szata76, vtibi, Botika; (CZECH REPUBLIC) Zirland, Fotrik, Greby; (SLOVAKIA) guri211, porubcan, M-A-L , Shalafi, Suik,foxitrot, Glipko, grafik, Jozef Drahovsky, MagicOfLA, duky, SonkaW; (AUSTRIA) GPSRitter; and (ROMANIA) Spookyx.

Have you ever attended a meetup? Do you hope to organize or attend one in your region in the future?

Community Built Add-ons and Extensions for Map Editing

We've told you all about the latest version of our map editor, now we want to open your eyes to some useful map editing tools.

When looking for the best tools to enhance map editing, look no further than the resources developed by members of the Waze map editing community itself. The resourceful bunch have coded and patched a crop of add-ons that make map editing on the world map editor a far more seamless experience.

Just last month, US-based editor mike-bronner released a Safari extension, a web toolbar, for the Waze map editor. The toolbar optimizes map editing by allowing editors to add segments, make edits, zoom, logout and as well as make other modifications to the map.

It also incorporates a tool developed by UK editor timbones (“WME Color Highlights”), which allows users to adds colors to road segments to show their status, and to landmarks to show their type. Highlighting segments can be useful to map editors aiming to see locked and un-named roads. (Forum)

By increasing the ease of map editing, these add-ons, and others, are making editing a quicker and more enjoyable activity.

Other community plugins, extensions and tools include:

The simplified “original” tool for map-editing, this extension provides a table documenting the country, state, city and street names present in each screen you edit.

Street to River, a script designed to hep to easily create river and railroad landmarks in the WME. If you're using Firefox, you'll need the Greasemonkey add-on. (Forum)

The Livemap Navigation addon, which allows for a a list of navigation instructions to be shown on the left-hand side while searching for directions via the Waze Livemap. This is particularly useful in helping editors debug routes, although it is useful to drivers as well. It also requires the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox users. (Forum)

Are there any other add-ons you use, or would like to see developed, while map editing?

UPDATE: Real-Time Gas Prices in 8 More Countries

UPDATE: The real-time gas price feature is also available for Wazers in France, Slovakia and Sweden.

Great news for Wazers across Europe and New Zealand!

Drivers in 8 more countries can now navigate to cheaper gas prices. The gas station feature, which enables drivers to navigate to cheap gas prices, is now available in Hungary, Germany Lithuania, Russia, Finland, New Zealand, Estonia and Cyprus.

With this feature, drivers in these countries will now be able to update each other on the latest gas prices at various stations on or along their route. When the whole community gets involved, drivers should be able to quickly locate the most inexpensive gas stations and save a bit of money to offset the rising cost of fuel.

We know that high gas prices affect many of you each day — and hopefully the addition of this feature should help.

Countries that have already launched the gas station feature include Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Latvia, Brazil, the United States, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The launch of this feature has been entirely dependent on crowdsourced information by the map editing community. Currently, more than 130,000 gas stations have been added to the Waze map by map editors, making the release of the feature available in more and more countries worldwide.

Remember — to keep prices updated while on the road, all you need to do is hit "report" and then "gas prices" each time you enter a gas station to verify that prices are accurate. Do your part and help the community beat the high costs of gas.

Are high gas prices a problem in your region?

Goodbye 'Cartouche,' Hello Sleek New Map Editor

It's a new dawn for the Waze map editing community! For our veteran map editors, yesterday marked the retirement of the original Waze map editor, affectionately known as the “Cartouche.” In its place is a newly unveiled version of Waze's World Map Editor (WME), with tons of new exciting updates bound to please our map editors and attract new editors alike.

Even while in beta mode, the Waze Map Editor has proven more a popular tool for attracting new map editors and solving map problems. In the United States, for example:

• The map editing community has resolved an astonishing 35,000 of the 37,000 map problems detected by our system during the last 30 days. (Learn how our system automatically detects map problems here.)

As we disclosed last month, the number of edits and new editors is rising as well:

The United States saw a 36% rise in map edits performed on the new world map editor from September to October.


• The rate of new editors signing up rose by 28% in the United States month-over-month.

We hope our official new version will keep up this trend.

Changes in the newly unveiled WME include, but are not limited, to:

Play Mode. Encourage your friends to try out map editing if they haven't because we've made it easier than ever to jump in! With the new "play mode" function, editors can try out fun editing tasks such as adding a road, gas station, landmark and more, without saving their changes.

A new design featuring a full-screen layout. Optimized for all screen sizes, now you can edit without any distractions.

A sleeker, more minimally-designed left side column. With a decreased font size and a cleaner look, making each individual edit becomes a far more seamless experience.

The ability to edit alternate street names and house number editing. Functions such as these, and several others, were previously only available on the "Cartouche."

Faster, smoother editing across web browsers, already noted by users on our forum.

. . . and even more!

Before we say our tearful goodbye to the original map editor, let's thank our community of stellar beta testers who made this awesome version release of the new and improved map editor a reality! Thanks guys!

So, what do you think about the new map editor?

User-Generated Gas Prices Come to Netherlands and Belgium

Drivers in two new countries can now enjoy the money-saving benefits of crowdsourcing today, with the release of our gas price feature in the Netherlands and Belgium.


We were able to launch the feature in these countries once the majority of its gas stations were mapped out by the map editing community. The countries' launched with 1,100 gas stations in Belgium and 2,000 gas stations in the Netherlands, respectively.

It's no secret that drivers worldwide are struggling with the rising cost of gas. With this launch, drivers in these countries will now be able to see real-time gas prices on or along their route.

Countries to have the fuel price feature launched include Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Latvia, Brazil and the United States.

We hope to launch real-time gas prices features next in Sweden, France, Germany, Slovakia, Finland, Lithuania, Hungary, New Zealand, Cyprus and Russia.

70% of Italian Drivers Struggle Daily With High Gas Prices

70% of Italian commuters in Milan, Rome and Naples have adjusted their daily driving habits to cope with increasing fuel costs, according to a survey conducted by Waze.

The sharp rise in fuel costs has led many drivers to cut back on non-mandatory trips (35.4%) or opt for public transportation alternatives (23.4%).

68% of drivers in Italian metros are incensed by gas costs every time they drive.

The good news is that Wazers in Italy can now work together to solve a problem that is deeply affecting their community with the launch of Waze's cheap fuel price locator.

The feature was launched in Italy this week, thanks to the hard work of the Italian map editing community, which mapped out the majority of the country's 18,000 gas stations.

Drivers in Italy will now be able to update real-time fuel prices at local stations and navigate to the cheapest petrol station along their route using Waze.

Countries to have the fuel price feature launched include the United Kingdom, Spain, Latvia, Brazil and the United States.

What have you done to cope with the rise in gas prices?

Map Editing on the Rise: New Map Editors Increase by 94%

Could map editing be a new go-to hobby for the mainstream? We certainly hope so.

In August alone, a record 15,000 new map editors joined the Waze map editing community, part of a consistent increase that marks a 43% month-over-month rise and a 94% increase from those joining in April.

Our map editing community is growing fast, and this increase is likely attributed to our new and improved map editor, a higher growth rate in drivers using Waze and increased efforts on our part to make map-editing a more user-friendly experience.

Many of the newly-joined map editors are logging in to fix simple map problems: whether it be a road problem in their neighborhood, the desire to add a gas station or mark a toll road, or any number of smaller editing tasks.

Gratification for editors may come in that these fixes can be seen quickly in the app itself, and each map edit has an immediate effect on map quality!

The number of individual edits being logged in the map editor has risen tremendously, with 52.5 million monthly edits being carried out in August 2012, compared to 38.7 million edits in July.

The increase comes at a time of record growth for us – with new drivers signing up at a rate of 2.5 million monthly downloads. It's probably no coincidence that more map editors (and therefore more accurate maps) coincides with more drivers signing up.

So what's driving people to map edit?

A recent survey of our US-based users found that the vast majority of editors (more than 77%) sign up after encountering a map problem where they drive regularly.

23% said they signed up to improve or update the maps in the areas they frequently drive.

18% signed up to earn more points and move up the map-editing ranks.

What do these new editors look like?

Our survey indicates the dominant age group for new editors is 40-50 (38%), followed by 30-40 (30%), and 50-60 (18%).

Approximately 81% of new editors are male, while nearly 18% are women.

Avoid Toll Roads, With Help From Your Local Map Editors

In the weeks since we enabled the ability to mark toll roads in the Waze Map Editor, the map editing community has already added more than 50,000 road segments detailing toll roads across the world. As a result, the 'avoid toll roads' feature has already been released in countries such as Australia, Belgium and Canada and will soon be available in many others.



Leading the local efforts to map toll roads are the United States, with 8,500 segments added and Italy, a close number two with 8,400 segments added.

Following the two nations are Spain with 5,500 segments, France with 5,100 and Portugal with 3,200 toll roads recorded.

Once we have 90% coverage of the toll-road data in a specific country - we will enable the 'avoid toll-roads' feature in the app for that specific country.

An upcoming version of Waze will let you both avoid toll roads as well as display in "alternate routes" whether a route will include a toll road or not. Future versions will allow for more customizable preferences for when to take you via a toll road or not.

So far, more than 40,400 miles of toll roads (65,000 kilometers) have been mapped by the Waze map editing community worldwide.

The power of a community app like Waze means its up to our brilliant map editing community to help chart out where these toll roads are: country-by-country, city-by-city, town-by-town.

Below you can see the list where the feature is currently available, with the United States joining the ranks this week.

If your country's not on the list, and you want to be able to avoid toll-roads, do your part and add a toll-road segment on the Waze Map Editor.

Countries With the Avoid Toll Roads Feature

Australia
Belgium
Canada
Czech Republic
Hungary
Israel
Latvia
Portugal
Slovakia
Sweden
The Netherlands
United Kingdom
United States

Toll Road Segments Added By Country

United States - 8500
Italy - 8400
Spain - 5410
France - 5100
Portugal - 3120
Japan - 3020
Austria - 1385
Czech Republic - 1155
Slovakia - 1010
Mexico - 1000
Chile - 1000
Hungary - 840
China - 740
Thailand - 645
Malaysia - 500
Philippines - 480
Brazil - 440
Canada - 375
Poland - 230
South Africa - 230
Croatia - 205
Serbia - 125

30 Days and More Than 50,000 Gas Stations Later

It's been a little over a month since we enabled the ability to add gas stations to the Waze Map Editor and the results have been amazing. The map editing community has outdone itself again, adding more than 50,000 gas stations worldwide.

Their quick and methodical work means that more and more drivers around the world will soon be able to save money on gas.

Drivers in Sweden can start getting excited, as nearly 70% of its gas stations have been mapped and we hope to activate the feature there in the very near future. Italy's map editors have already mapped out more than 50% of their country's stations, while more than 40% of France's gas stations have been mapped.



Germany currently has 26% of its stations mapped out, but may soon see a big bump in its numbers thanks to an external list delivered to Waze by users.

For those unfamiliar, in order for us to enable our real-time gas price feature in more countries, the map editing community needs to add up to 70% of a country's total gas stations to the Waze map. After that, we can activate the feature in new countries and more drivers worldwide will get to save money on gas during their daily commute.

The country totals are impressive and at this rate, the feature will be enabled in these countries by October, or earlier!

Currently, the cheap fuel price locator is available in the United States, the United Kingdom and, most recently, Latvia.

Have you tried adding a gas station yet?