TRAC 2026: Team Singapore Open Discussions

Google Maps tips & tricks
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You may or may not know this! :thinking:

But every TRAC season pushes the dozens of participants to all corners of the internet to communicate with one another. There are Telegram Groups, Private Connect Chats, WhatsApp Chats, maybe even some smoke signals coming from @MarcoDavoli’s island. :grin:

HOWEVER

The discussions are always productive, welcoming, informative, and often funny. We on Team Singapore have decided to bring our private chat out into the open to give a behind-the-scenes view of what it means to be a true Road Warrior, a TRACian, a Roader!

We’ve no concern about other teams stealing secrets. We’ve no concerns about giving away our “special locations” to edit. All of TRAC is meant to build a community.

So, read along & join in

Our hope is that this serves as another how-to document that will help get more people on the Map and drawing roads!

Banner image created by @MarcoDavoli with Jake adding text using Gemini AI. All other text and captions come directly from the brain of @justjake. Expect grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and general tomfoolery.

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@Rahul001! @Abotorab, @Ankitsrivastava, @CM_Kuncham, @CaptainCorey, @Dahboss, @Designer_Biswajit, @DipeshKShrestha, @JanVanHaver, @JitendraKumarprasa, @LudwigGermany , @MarcoDavoli , @MdFerozKabir, @NareshDarji, @Nuccia, @Ptrivedi, @Raj_Tayade , @StarLord4K, @tony_b, @VikramSingh_Valera, @Yannick_S, @anhcauduong67, @gabito705, @khmansour1, @AjitThite,
@jalalus @Pankaj_Sarker @rogerohayashi @SharmaKK @elyudith @Jesi @syaubananas @JulhazUddin @Kyescentia

Please help me out and get anyone I missed from Team Singapore. This cut/paste stuff is confusing! :wink: THANK YOU, MARCO!

Read a great guide on creating Edit Lists from our friend and teammate @AjitThite How To Utilize Lists in Google Maps for Road Mapping | TRAC 2026

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Thanks for starting this new thread @JustJake. Looks like a slow beginning, but I’m sure it will gain momentum in the next 24 hours perhaps.

Just posting so that those who follow me would have a way of discovering what we have here.

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Just a tip for the newbies and, maybe some old schoolers, if you come across a freshy-fresh wide open grid to map…DON’T DO IT ALL IN ONE SHOT!

First draw your main roads, save the location to a list, and come back to fill it in 1-by-1. You increase your chances of approval, and you get more roads counted for your profile.

Do NOT Do THIS:

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Thanks you for guide @JustJake

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ông có thể nói rõ ý kiến của ông đối với tôi ?

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Awesome initiative dear @JustJake Transparency like this really helps build a stronger TRAC community. We became friends at TARC, and through Connect our friendship has grown even stronger. Your sporting spirit truly reflects what this community is all about. Glad to call you a very good friend.:flexed_biceps:

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It’s great to see you sharing your post to help everyone learn. Thank you dear friend @JustJake for sharing your insights, so open and helping the community grow. Your post highlights the true spirit of TRAC.

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Thanks for this clarity, @JustJake.

Cheers!

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This is simply awesome, @JustJake!! I truly appreciate you taking the initiative to do this for the community’s learning. :handshake::blush:

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Hi everyone,

Welcome to the Singapore Open Discussion.

My name is Khalid and I am from Yemen. This is my first time participating in TRAC, although I have wanted to join for a long time. For many years road editing was blocked in my country, and I was not very active on the Local Guides Connect platform. Last year I discovered that the restriction had been removed, so I resumed my mapping activity and started adding roads again.

I have been involved in mapping for many years. I still remember the old Google Map Maker program, where I reviewed many of the main roads across the country. I also participated in previous Google Groups with members from Saudi Arabia, where I learned a lot from the community. I am not sure where those members are today or why they are not very active on this platform.

When I restarted mapping last year, it was quite challenging because I began mostly on my own. I jumped directly into editing without reading much documentation, which led to several difficulties. However, through these challenges I learned a lot. I would especially like to thank Ermist and Morten for their help. Their posts and guidance were very valuable, and I highly recommend reading them.

I am trying to be very active in TRAC 2026. One of my main goals is to help others avoid the same pitfalls that I experienced when I started road editing. I am always happy to support anyone who is beginning in this field.

At the same time, I am also eager to learn from experienced members such as @Jalalus and @SarathUpendran. I have already asked them for advice, and they have been very supportive. Thank you in advance for your guidance.

Recently, I started uploading videos to my YouTube channel “khmansour1”, where I explain my strategy for reviewing and following up on road edits. I hope these videos will be useful for other mappers. I can also help anyone who wants to set up the JavaScript tool developed by @gncnpk.

If anyone is interested, you can find my videos by searching for khmansour1 on YouTube.

I look forward to learning from everyone here and contributing to the community.

Best wishes to all.

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I’m so very pleased to have you on my team, @anhcauduong67. You’re an incredibly skilled and accomplished Roader!

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I’ve definitely been seeing my approvals come up a bit, but everything is from recent entries. I have so many pending roads within the 90-day window that are not moving at all.

Is anyone else experiencing this, too? Just getting approvals for March roads?

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I have 650 pending roads in the current month of March alone. What should I do?:thinking:

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Yes @JustJake. Please see summary below.

  • 5 on March 1st for the same day
  • 3 on March 9th for March 6th and 7th
  • 1 on March 11th for March 3rd

That’s 9 emails, but only the first 5 have been added to my Contributions list. Also note that’s 9 approvals out of the last 235 roads I’ve drawn - a less than 4% response rate by Google.

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Ya wait! :rofl:

I have a whole lot pending, too, but my approvals are just coming from March. I’d expect to see some of my backlog of Jan/Feb edits getting cleared, too. :man_shrugging:

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We are so happy to have you along, Khalid. I’m excited to have a true first-timer on my team to see what a great impact you’ll have in your first season!

Thank you so much for doing this! Using THIS TOOL from the master scripter, @gncnpk, has TOTALLY improved my experience drawing roads. From your videos, I see you picked up his other tools for reviewing edits, as well. :+1:

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Yo estoy muy sorprendido porque en mis caminos agregados en marzo tengo un 50% de aprobaciones. Es un poco más alto que mi porcentaje en la campaña de 2025.
Desde que terminó esa campaña no había agregado ningún otro camino hasta finales de febrero pasado que comencé con unos cuantos para calentar motores.

Entonces sigo muy motivado porque seguro este mismo mes tendré los caminos necesarios para llegar al nivel 10 porque estoy a nada de llegar a los 100 mil puntos. :+1:

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Viel Erfolg @LightRich

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Question for the experts. See screenshot below

Screenshot_20260309-082902
Screenshot_20260309-082902864×498 120 KB

I have a question about the 2nd white dot from the left (in between the + signs).

When drawing a new road that crosses an existing road and the newly drawn part is a straight line, is it needed to add a node at the intersection of that newly drawn part and the existing road?