The company blames COVID-19 for the decision
Waze first broke onto the scene as a carpooling app in 2016, with the pilot launching in Israel first and later rolling out in the US. Today, while the Google-owned company serves millions of drivers across the globe with its navigation and traffic detection capabilities, its carpool service has diminished in popularity. To be fair, it was to be expected in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic which upended the way people travel and share car rides together. The company’s new announcement reflects this shift as Waze Carpool is officially ending its operations in September.
The firm said that although its app functioned as a commuting app during the pre-COVID era, the way people travel in the present day has changed drastically. In a statement to The Verge, Waze said it would continue to offer real-time insights and serve people who rely on the app for accurate traffic-related information during their journey. The closure of Waze Carpool will impact users in the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Israel, where the company has its roots.
Separately, a Waze spokesperson told TechCrunch that it wants to focus on decongesting traffic in cities and solve other “mobility problems” such as cost, sustainability, and safety. The company also shared data on people’s driving habits post-COVID, saying that US states, on average, are seeing a 5 to 15% increase in miles on the road compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Waze Carpool was a novel idea when it was launched around six years ago. But as the pandemic shuttered workplaces en masse, there became fewer and fewer reasons for anyone to carpool unless they lived in the same house. So the Google-owned company’s reasoning behind the closure of the service does make sense, as it would be pointless to continue tweaking and improving a service that few still use. Still, it does come at a somewhat odd time as some ride-hailing apps including Lyft have already brought back ride-sharing options to their customers. Will this be a move that Waze comes to regret? We’ll have to see.
