Road closure information

You can use the Waze Data feed to provide deliberate closure information in real-time. Deliberate closures appear in the Waze Map Editor. They show start and end times, but only appear in the Waze App while the closure is active.

Use a Road Closure only if the incident you report entails a full closure of all the lanes in the road. If your incident impacts only some of the lanes, describe the lane impacts in the element of an Incident report.

Closure entries with absent or incorrect information for start and end times, street names, or directions are put down as closure map problems.

Map problems are shown in the Waze Map Editor by the following icon:

Waze Map image icon

These map problems require a higher-level community map editor to review and approve or reject them. Once the reviews and approvals are complete, the road closures will appear on the map.

To ensure that the street and road names you provide in your listing matches the ones in the Waze map, try using the Waze Reverse Geocoding API, because incidents that have incorrect information won't display on the map.

Closure mapping guidelines

To map a road closure, specify ROAD_CLOSED in the type tag. You must map the closure according to the following guidelines:

  • Waze closures are put together between two connecting junctions, road splits, or merges. You cannot map a road closure for only part of a segment.

    The following closure is put together correctly since the edges you provide match the edges of the Waze segment:

    An image of a road closure.

    Notice that the following closure also results in closing the entire segment, although you only specify a fraction of it:

    Another image of a road closure.

  • The polyline must correctly resemble the geometry of the road. It doesn’t have to exactly match the road’s alignment, but the general shape should be as similar as possible.

    The following polyline correctly maintains the general shape of the road:

    Polyline image used in context.

    The following polyline is too crude since it provides only the start and end points:

    Polyline image used in context.

  • Closures can only affect one street or road. The closure’s start and end points must have the same street name. A stretch of road that spans across different street names might receive a rejection, even if an exact polyline is provided.
  • Feed closures can only be made on the following road types:
    • Freeways
    • Highways
    • City Streets
    • Ramps

    Road types that don't have support include the following:

    • Private roads
    • Parking lot roads
    • 4x4 and pedestrian roads
  • The start and end points of a closure must be at least 30 meters apart.
  • We cannot close a section longer than 20 km for one incident.

For more detail specifications of the Closure and Incident Feed Specification (CIFS) tags, see CIFS specification.

Closure examples

The following examples show a single road closure in XML and JSON formats.

XML closure

The following is an example of a feed containing a single road closure in XML format:

<incidents>
  <incident id="101">
    <type>ROAD_CLOSED</type>
    <subtype>ROAD_CLOSED_CONSTRUCTION</subtype>
    <polyline>51.510090 -0.006902 51.509142 -0.006564 51.506291 -0.003640 51.503796 0.001051 51.499218 0.001687 51.497365 0.002020</polyline>
    <street>NW 12th St</street>
    <starttime>2016-04-07T09:00:00+01:00</starttime>
    <endtime>2016-04-07T23:00:00+01:00</endtime>
    <description>Closure on I-95 NB due to construction</description>
    <direction>BOTH_DIRECTIONS</direction>
  </incident>
</incidents>

JSON closure

The following is an example of a feed file containing a single road closure in JSON format:

{
  "incidents": [
    {
      "incident": {
        "id": "101",
        "type": "ROAD_CLOSED",
        "subtype": "ROAD_CLOSED_CONSTRUCTION",
        "polyline": "51.510090 -0.006902 51.509142 -0.006564 51.506291 -0.003640 51.503796 0.001051 51.499218 0.001687 51.497365 0.002020",
        "street": "NW 12th St",
        "starttime": "2016-04-07T09:00:00+01:00",
        "endtime": "2016-04-07T23:00:00+01:00",
        "description": "Closure on I-95 NB due to construction",
        "direction": "BOTH_DIRECTIONS"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The following examples show an entire road closure feed file in both XML and JSON formats.

XML feed file

The following is an example of a complete road closure feed file in XML:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<incidents xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://www.gstatic.com/road-incidents/cifsv2.xsd">
    <incident id="3f4r45ff233">
      <creationtime>2017-07-04T13:31:17-04:00</creationtime>
      <updatetime>2017-11-17T04:40:41-05:00</updatetime>
      <type>ROAD_CLOSED</type>
      <description>Complete road closure due to road works</description>
      <street>N Liberty St</street>
      <direction>BOTH_DIRECTIONS</direction>
      <polyline>42.1601432984533 -119.3525208937842 42.1781676611244 -119.35679623266</polyline>
      <starttime>2017-06-05T00:01:00-04:00</starttime>
      <endtime>2017-11-22T15:30:00-05:00</endtime>
    </incident>
    <incident id="zxf3kvmrpf">
      <creationtime>2017-08-04T13:31:30-04:00</creationtime>
      <updatetime>2017-12-17T04:40:41-05:00</updatetime>
      <type>ROAD_CLOSED</type>
      <subtype>ROAD_CLOSED_CONSTRUCTION</subtype>
      <description>PLANNED ROAD CLOSURE St Johns Sdrd from William Graham to Woodbine in the Town of Aurora. Closed until Dec 31.</description>
        <street>St John's Sideroad</street>
        <direction>BOTH_DIRECTIONS</direction>
        <polyline>44.02712 -99.43131 44.023011 -99.363349 44.02712 -99.43131 44.0343021 -99.399426</polyline>
      <starttime>2017-04-18T00:01:00-04:00</starttime>
      <endtime>2017-12-31T23:59:00-05:00</endtime>
    </incident>
</incidents>

JSON feed file

The following is an example of a complete road closure feed file in JSON:

{
  "incidents": [
    {
      "id": "3f4r45ff233",
      "creationtime": "2017-07-04T13:31:17-04:00",
      "updatetime": "2017-11-17T04:40:41-05:00",
      "description": "Complete road closure due to road works",
      "street": "N Liberty St",
      "direction": "BOTH_DIRECTIONS",
      "polyline": "42.1601432984533 -119.3525208937842 42.1781676611244 -119.35679623266",
      "starttime": "2017-06-05T00:01:00-04:00",
      "endtime": "2017-11-22T15:30:00-05:00",
      "type": "ROAD_CLOSED"
    },
    {
      "id": "zxf3kvmrpf",
      "creationtime": "2017-08-04T13:31:30-04:00",
      "updatetime": "2017-12-17T04:40:41-05:00",
      "description": "St Johns Sdrd from William Graham to Woodbine in the Town of Aurora. Closed until Dec 31. ",
      "type": "ROAD_CLOSED",
      "subtype": "ROAD_CLOSED_CONSTRUCTION",
      "street": "St John's Sideroad",
      "direction": "BOTH_DIRECTIONS",
      "polyline": "44.02712 -99.43131 44.023011 -99.363349 44.02712 -99.43131 44.0343021 -99.399426",
      "starttime": "2017-04-18T00:01:00-04:00",
      "endtime": "2017-12-31T23:59:00-05:00"
    }
  ]
}