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Waze launched its ride-share app Waze Carpool in Washington Tuesday with the intention of making carpooling fun and easy — and getting cars off the road.
“Waze is about outsmarting traffic, together,” Waze CEO Noam Bardin said. “Traffic is getting worse and worse. The numbers are shocking and there is no end in sight.”
Bardin said car congestion is a universal problem.
“It affects our well-being, environment and the economy,” he said. “By stepping a little bit out of our comfort zones, we can take cars off the road.”
The app allows users to sign up to be a driver, rider or both. It provides users on both ends access to see the other person’s background before agreeing to the ride. Drivers can sign up through the Waze map app. Riders need to download the Waze Rider app available in iOS and Android.
Depending on the distance and number of riders, the price of a ride is much less than Uber of Lyft because the driver fee is capped at the federal mileage rate of 54 cents per mile. The driver can opt to charge less, but not more.
Seattle’s traffic is a result of the state and city’s robust economy and is not changing anytime soon, said Charles Knutson, executive policy adviser for the office of Gov. Jay Inslee.
With the state adding 300,000 jobs in the last five years and 1,000 new people moving to Seattle per week, the problem is going to get worse.
While the app has been made available in California, Texas and Israel through various prototypes, Washington is the first state in which the company held an official launch. Washington was selected as the premiere market due to its strong economy, high number of large employers like Amazon, Boeing and Microsoft and its gridlock traffic.
The Waze map app has 375,000 monthly active users in the Seattle area.
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