Waze, which operates the popular navigation app, is due to launch, probably today, a new app called RideWith that will interface with the Waze app and will for the first time make it possible to arrange carpooling for payment. At present, the service is a pilot scheme without a time limit, restricted to the Gush Dan (Greater Tel Aviv) area, and is available on Android devices only. The idea is to enable people making the same journey to travel together and thus reduce traffic congestion.
The new service will connect Waze's technology and the information it holds on traffic levels with Waze's very involved user community, the members of which have already demonstrated their preparedness to help one another with reports on traffic congestion, police patrol cars on the roadside, and suchlike information. As "Globes" reported last month, 2.9 million Israelis use Waze once a month, and 850,000 use it daily. On average, Israeli drivers use Waze for eight hours monthly and open it 17 times per month.
How will the pilot scheme work? On the driver side, he or she will continue to use the Waze app, to which will be added an extra feature enabling drivers to indicate that they are prepared to participate in the pilot and to pick up occasional passengers who want to travel the same route as them. Potential passengers who seek a ride will use a separate app called RideWith. On this app, users will indicate the route they wish to travel, and the app will update relevant drivers who plan to drive that route the following day in the morning or after work.
If the passenger finds a relevant driver, the two sides can communicate with each other by text message or telephone, without revealing personal details such as their telephone number. At this point, the payment mechanism, which is a key part of the new service, comes into pay.
Pricing will be according to a calculation of fuel usage and vehicle wear, based on data from Heshev Information Systems. The two parties do not of course have to agree on this price. A trip from Tel Aviv to Herzliya, for example, is priced at NIS 15, on which Waze will charge a commission, set at 15% initially.
The amount the driver receives after deduction of the commission will thus not be especially high, and cannot represent a source of income. Not only that, but the pilot will limit the drivers to two journeys a day in which they can pick up passengers: one in the morning on the way to work, and another in the evening home again. Nor is it clear how worthwhile the price will be for the driver, who will have to make some kind of detour from his or her usual route. In this way, Waze, through its parent company Google, is trying to dodge between the drops, and not fall foul of the law forbidding private drivers from carrying paying passengers. This is the stumbling block making it difficult for Uber to launch its private transport service UberX in Israel.
The pilot will be launched in the Dan area, focusing on the high-tech industry areas of Ramat Hahayal, Herzliya Pituah and Ra'anana, but use of it will gradually be expanded in accordance with the supply of drivers. In places where there are no drivers, passengers will receive a notification that the service is not available at present and that they will be alerted as soon as the service becomes relevant to them.
For all the popularity of Waze among drivers in Israel, there can be no certainty that the new service will succeed. The aim of the pilot is precisely to test the market, in which there are already several carpooling apps in operation, none of which has so far made a breakthrough to mass use. It will be interesting to see how Waze will promote the new RideWith app, which might prove a new source of revenue for it, but which will cut into the number of users of Waze itself, since its aim is to reduce the number of drivers on the road.
Waze said in response, "We are setting up a small pilot in the Gush Dan area based on the carpooling concept. Beyond that, we have nothing to report at this stage."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 6, 2015
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