Google-owned navigation service Waze is shutting down its six-year-old carpool service, citing changing commuting patterns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
From September, the company will begin phasing out its carpool service, which was available in the US, Brazil and Israel. Waze said it will explore other ways to serve the 150 million customers worldwide who use its navigation app.
“While Waze was primarily a commuter app before the coronavirus crisis, today its share of groceries and travel has surpassed commuter traffic,” the company said in a statement. The edge. “This means we have the opportunity to find even more impactful ways to bring a global community together to share real-time insights and help each other outsmart traffic – this is what has always made Waze truly special .”
Waze Carpool was first launched in the Bay Area in 2016 and eventually expanded to all 50 states in the US, Brazil and Waze’s home country, Israel. The service differed from the carpool services offered by Uber and Lyft in that non-professional drivers could offer rides to people traveling on a similar route for a small fee. In 2018, the company launched its own standalone carpool app.
The impetus, at least originally, was to allow more people to share a ride in the interest of reducing the number of vehicles for one person on the road. Waze said it would use its “superior routing technology” to help commuters fill empty seats in their cars and, in the process, hopefully reduce the number of cars on the road.
Waze insisted it wasn’t in it to make money. Still, the company relied on partnerships with major employers who could then encourage employees to use the service. At one point, Waze sent teams of employees to WeWork locations with tacos and other free goodies to persuade young professionals to download the app.
Carpooling has been on the rise in recent decades. In the 1970s, in the midst of a gas crisis, about 20 percent of Americans shared a ride on their way to work; now that number is around 9 percent. Both Uber and Lyft have tried to get their respective customers to share rides with varying degrees of success.
But when carpooling started to gain modest momentum, COVID basically stopped it in its tracks. Uber and Lyft both shut down their carpool services in the early months of the pandemic. With cases down and vaccines widely available, carpooling is making a comeback — especially in response to rising fare prices.
Waze’s service relied on a steady stream of people going to the office every day, and that has fundamentally changed as a result of the pandemic. According to a recent study, 35 percent said they can work from home full-time. Another 23 percent can work from home between one and four days a week.
Waze said it will continue to work with cities on their mobility challenges. “We are proud of what we have achieved through Waze Carpool and are grateful to the Carpool community for sharing rides and working together to get cars off the road,” the company added.
