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Waze Carpool now lets drivers quickly add more riders

A couple taps is all it takes.

Andrew Krok Reviews Editor / Cars
Cars are Andrew's jam, as is strawberry. After spending years as a regular ol' car fanatic, he started working his way through the echelons of the automotive industry, starting out as social-media director of a small European-focused garage outside of Chicago. From there, he moved to the editorial side, penning several written features in Total 911 Magazine before becoming a full-time auto writer, first for a local Chicago outlet and then for CNET Cars.
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Waze Carpool is a clever way to hopefully reduce congestion during rush hour. Making it easier to add riders should improve that.

 Waze

Waze Carpool isn't like your usual ride-sharing service. It's not out to cut drivers a profit, but instead reduce vehicle clutter by helping strangers carpool along the same route. Now, Waze has added a feature that it says drivers have been asking for.

Waze announced on Monday that it has added a new feature for the driver side of its Waze Carpool app. It's now much easier to bring additional folks into a carpool. After confirming a ride, drivers can tap a new + icon that invites riders who bring minimal detours to the route.

According to the image in Waze's Medium post, the new function will let drivers see how much more money the trip brings in, in addition to how big of a detour is required. Drivers can fill up to four seats, although Waze was quick to point out that the prices do get adjusted "so they don't exceed the total sum of wear and tear." Drivers are still limited to two carpools per day, since this isn't about quitting your job and running this scheme full-time.

This is a stark contrast to how Uber and Lyft run pools. In those schemes, the driver is still acting as your usual ride-hailing driver, but instead they're picking up multiple people who have destinations along similar routes. It saves the riders a little bit of money, even if it means taking slightly longer to reach a given destination.