One of the more distinctive aspects of Google’s Waze navigation software will no longer be available as Waze Carpool will be discontinued as of next month.
Waze confirmed today via The Verge that Waze Carpool would be discontinued beginning in September. After six years in operation, the service is being terminated.
By carpooling with other local vehicles for a modest price, Waze Carpool was designed to help users of the app save money on fuel. Waze’s carpool option, in contrast to Lyft and Uber’s, aimed to pair up drivers with comparable commutes in order to fill empty seats in a car and reduce the number of vehicles on the road during peak commute hours. Since a few years ago, Waze Carpool has been available.
Carpool was first exclusively accessible in the San Francisco Bay area, but it was eventually made available throughout the remainder of the United States, Brazil, and Israel.
Why has Carpool been terminated? According to Waze, the most important factor to take into account was COVID and the effects it has had on commutes and places of employment. Waze doesn’t have the steady and consistent flow of users required to make this kind of business profitable because more and more employees are able to work from home full-time or even have more flexible schedules for when they do come into the office.
But from what it seems like, Waze isn’t completely abandoning the concept of carpooling. Waze states in a statement:
Before COVID, Waze was primarily a commuter app, but today, errands and other travel-related driving outnumber commutes. Since Waze has always been unique, we now have the chance to create even more effective ways to unite a worldwide community to exchange real-time information and aid one another in outwitting traffic. We are pleased with what Waze Carpool helped us achieve and applaud the community for sharing drives and cooperating to remove vehicles from the road.
After September 2022, Waze Carpool will phase down and begin to stop operations.
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