Waze announced that it has expanded its Carpool ride-sharing app into Washington State in a sign that the solution is being received positively. The expansion increases the solution’s scope from its original coverage of California, Texas, and Israel.
The move into Washington comes after Waze expanded its Carpool app in California in June of last year. The solution has matured quickly from its humble origins into a robust ride-sharing app boasting equivalent features of competing apps and an impressive regional coverage across multiple US states and Israel.
Along with the addition of Washington to Waze Carpool, a slew of new features were also added to the app that allow participants to filter who they are willing to ride with based on gender, driver ratings, profile information, connections to friends, and even to limit ride-sharing to coworkers only. The inclusion of filtering of only coworkers is a neat addition that has the potential to open the solution up to integration directly with employers as a perk of employment.
Imagine a fleet of corporate ride-sharing vans provided by an employer and driven by an employee. When employees are ready for work, they simply login to the Waze Carpool app and ask for a ride. The system would calculate which van made the most sense to make the pickup and would automagically integrate the additional rider into the queue.
Beyond just corporate ride-sharing, the new features added in the latest update aim to make the solution more comfortable for riders to use who are not thrilled by the prospect of riding with complete strangers. The ability to filter by gender or a driver’s historical rating adds a bit of comfort and assurance that the driver has been vetted by others.
Waze Carpool is increasingly competing with similar apps like Uber and Lyft, as it allows drivers to use their personal vehicles to connect with paying riders for profit. Uber and Lyft have both run into their fair share of problems as taxi drivers and cab companies have pushed back on the services. Time will tell how Waze Carpool will be received, but until then, it’s great to see another solution with promise move into the space.
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