Türkiye: Integrate official Ministry of Interior radar, checkpoint, and average-speed corridor data
Waze should consider integrating official public traffic-enforcement data for Türkiye from the Turkish Ministry of Interior:
https://www.icisleri.gov.tr/iller-arasi-radar-ve-kontrol-noktasi-uygulama-sayilari
This official page allows drivers to view the number of speed corridors, radar controls, and police/gendarmerie control points on selected intercity routes. According to the Ministry page, the data covers traffic applications carried out by Police and Gendarmerie units on the selected route and is refreshed every 30 minutes.
Adding this data to Waze would be very useful for drivers in Türkiye, especially on intercity routes. The goal would not be to help drivers avoid the law, but to improve road-safety awareness and help drivers comply with speed limits and traffic rules.
This is especially important for average-speed corridors. In Türkiye, average-speed enforcement systems generally work through plate-recognition points at the beginning and end of a road section. The system compares the vehicle’s passage times over the corridor and determines whether the vehicle’s average speed exceeded the legal limit. Waze could warn drivers before entering such corridors and, where data is available, clearly show that the section is an average-speed enforcement zone rather than a normal fixed speed camera.
Suggested implementation:
- Waze could work with official Turkish government data sources, such as the Ministry of Interior, to ingest radar, checkpoint, and speed-corridor data where technically and legally possible.
- The data could refresh periodically, ideally in line with the Ministry’s 30-minute update cycle.
- Speed corridors should be displayed differently from normal fixed cameras, with clear “average speed zone” warnings.
- Waze could warn drivers before entering a speed corridor and remind them that average speed is measured across the whole section.
- The system should use official/licensed data only and allow local Waze editors to validate, correct, or supplement the information where permitted.
- If exact coordinates are not available from the public source, Waze could still use the official route-based data as a signal for further validation by Waze staff, partners, or trusted local map editors.
A second related improvement would be better map-quality enrichment for Türkiye. In some areas, Waze still appears to miss roads, restrictions, local rules, or other details compared with long-established navigation services used in Türkiye. However, this should not be done by copying or scraping data from Google Maps, Apple Maps, Yandex Maps, or any other proprietary map provider. Instead, Waze should improve Türkiye map coverage through legal and approved sources, such as:
- official government datasets,
- Waze for Cities or other public-sector partnerships,
- licensed third-party datasets,
- approved open-data sources,
- local Waze community validation,
- and user-submitted reports from drivers.
This would make Waze more reliable in Türkiye while respecting copyright, licensing rules, and local traffic-law requirements.
Overall, this feature would improve legal compliance, driver awareness, and road safety in Türkiye by using official public enforcement information in a responsible way.