Overview

Closures, alerts, and hazards on Waze maps are added and updated through two primary sources:

  • Direct map updates from our community of users, partners and Map Editors.
  • Feeds provided by our partners.

A partner data feed allows Waze partners to independently upload and share real-time traffic alerts, moving vehicles, and road closure information with Waze drivers in an automated and scalable way.

CIFS (Closure and Incident Feed Specification) is Waze's standard protocol to describe Incidents and Road Closures in Partners' feeds. Sharing a CIFS feed is the preferred method for sharing closures and incidents feeds with Waze.

If you already have closures and incidents feeds of a different format, such as ESRI, WZDx, Datex2, or your own generated schema, you can still submit them for consideration. While our primary specification is CIFS, we understand that partners may have existing data pipelines complying to different specifications.

CIFS feed creation

The basic steps for creating a CIFS feed are:

  1. Create an XML or JSON format feed file containing your data for closures, incidents, or moving vehicles. You can provide closure and incident information in the same feed.
  2. Provide a URL to the data via the Partner Hub.
  3. Wait for the file to be validated by Waze. In the event of encountering problems with the feed, expect an email from the Waze Partners team.
  4. Once approved, the data is automatically fetched and added to the Waze maps.

Sharing a non-CIFS feed

If your feed does not comply with the CIFS specifications but includes all of the required data, Waze might still be able to process it. This requires a manual review process, and we may not be able to support all non-CIFS formats.
Submit your feed via the Partner Hub for validation and feedback. We'll assess our ability to ingest it and let you know if we can proceed.

Note: You can provide road closures and other incidents in the same feed.

Waze accepts feeds in the following formats:

CIFS (Closure & Incident Feed Specification) Waze's standard protocol to describe Incidents and Road Closures. Sharing a CIFS feed is the preferred method, and typically results in a more rapid and successful integration.
ESRI (ArcGIS) ArcGIS users can create compatible feeds by following these instructions.
WZDx Waze requires the vehicle_impact field to be populated in WZDx feeds. This is a crucial requirement because it enables the platform to accurately distinguish a full road closure from other events, such as a lane closure or a hazard, and properly route drivers.
DATEX II Partially supported, with full support planned in the near future.
All other formats Waze may be able to process feeds in other formats, if they include all of the required data elements as indicated in the CIFS specification.