Wazer, can you spare a ride?
No more crowd-surfing on Facebook, asking your friends and their friends for a ride to or from work.
Waze, the popular navigation app, is launching a carpooling pilot program that will connect commuters to a ride going their way.
The Google-owned, Israel-based mapping company has chosen Israel to test its new project. According to Haaretz, Google “chose to launch the ridesharing pilot in Tel Aviv because of the widespread use of Waze in Israel.”
“We’re conducting a small, private beta test in the greater Tel Aviv area for a carpool concept, but we have nothing further to announce at this time,” Waze told Reuters.
According to reports, the new program will match riders and drivers going the same way. Riders will pay a small fee for the drive to and from work.
The RideWith application will use Waze’s navigation system to find out the most popular routes drivers take to work and match them up with people looking for a ride.
Waze is reportedly limiting drivers to two paid journeys a day in order to curb the possibility of this turning into a side business for drivers.
The pilot will run in Tel Aviv, Ra’anana, and Herzliya, according to the Haaretz report, and Google will expand the service to the rest of Israel if it is successful.
Viva Sarah Press / Israel21c.org
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