Waze, the famous navigation app from tech tycoon Google, announced a carpool service last Monday in San Francisco Bay Area. The new service, however, is only available to a selected group of employees and employers in Bay Area.
Although the service is recently launched, yet if it gains proper exposure, it can compete with Uber and Lyft, the most known pickup service in the Bay Area. Employees, who will be enjoying the service, can download the free app, which will let them request a ride from Waze users who share same commute, reported SF Gate.
After a specific request has been received, drivers can choose to approve or reject the request from the app. The drivers and the riders are matched with the app's user in the Bay area. "Coordination, communication and payment are automatically handled through the apps," Waze says in a blog post.
"Waze Carpool connects riders and drivers with nearly identical commutes based on their home and work addresses," the company mentioned, according to reports from The Verge. "Thanks to Waze advanced mapping capabilities, the platform connects carpool partners from the same local community, making it easy to carpool with neighbors and colleagues you know or haven't met yet."
Notably, carpooling has been quite popular in the present times, especially in San Francisco, where both Lyft and Uber are experimenting. While Lyft has been using non - professional drivers to test its "casual carpooling" service, Uber has been busy expanding its pool service to different locations.
Riders who will use the Waze service, will be paying the drivers an amount based on the rates set by IRS, i.e. 54 cents per mile.
Incidentally, the announcement comes from Google, when the company has been testing its mobility efforts in three cities, with the self - driving car. Thus, if Waze's introduction becomes successful, Google might use its own platform to release a commercialized system of driverless car service.
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