Israel Hayom | Waze revs up for pilot carpooling program in Israel

Move over, Lyft. The crowd-sourced traffic and navigation app Waze is getting into the carpooling business.

They way it would work is.

The new transportation app RideWith will link drivers with passengers who want to reach work where both have a similar route to their workplace. That data will be sent to any driver who matches that route and time and the driver can choose to accept the fare or decline.

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.

Google will take a cut of the fee paid, with the percentage still to be determined. Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the new service or of its plans to launch it in the United States and elsewhere.

For now, though, Google’s early limitations for Waze appear aimed at avoiding some of the regulatory struggles that’s beset Uber around the globe. Ever since Google’s acquisition of the app, the search giant has been incorporating the best of these features into Google Maps. The company has experimented a lot with the mapping system. However, the app lets users “contribute” to the Waze community by alerting fellow drivers using Waze to police stops, accidents, slow traffic and potential hazards. In this sense, drivers essentially replace cartographers.

However, that would not keep the company from trying to make money off Waze’s traffic navigation capabilities as well – hence the decision to implement RideShare, according to industry experts quoted in the Israeli media.

Also unclear is how the app would work in real time. In other words, people won’t be giving up their day jobs anytime soon to become drivers for Waze. It has long been rumored that Google to be launching a ride-hailing service, but it was expected to involve autonomous cars.

Waze is poised to join a crowded field inarguably dominated by Uber-which, after five years, is still experiencing meteoric growth and muscling its way into multiple worldwide markets.

Waze believes that there will not be enough drivers available to meet the demand to start.