According to the Jerusalem Post and Reuters, Google’s Waze is testing a carpool service in Israel. Named RideWith, it will match riders and drivers based on their most frequent routes to and from work.
Waze told Reuters,”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.” There’s no word on whether the company plans a wider rollout.
Drivers apparently won’t be able to earn a salary from the service, making it less like more established ridesharing services such as Lyft or Uber. Riders will be asked to pay a modest sum for “the cost of gas and wear and tear on the car” according to the Reuters report.
In addition to Uber’s UberPool there are a growing number of app-based carpooling services, including Ride.
If the RideWith test is deemed a success and the service does roll out more broadly, it is less likely to be met with taxi industry opposition. Recently Uber suspended its UberPop operation in France after massive and violent protests by taxi drivers.
Earlier this year there was a rumor that Google was developing its own Uber competitor. That was later dismissed as an internal, Google employee carpooling service. However leaked information about RideWith may have been the source of that earlier rumor.
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