The Google-owned company has the data to connect commuters to possible carpool buddies, Whether Waze can stem the long-term decline in carpooling remains to be seen.
Waze Carpool, a spinoff of the Google-owned direction company, Waze, is a kind of Tinder for carpooling. It uses data from its navigation app to pair commuters who have similar trips with each other. "Waze sees carpooling as a natural extension of its crowd-powered navigation app, which integrates information on traffic and road conditions from users into its directions," Andrew Small writes for CityLab.
Carpooling has a number of benefits for cities in that it can reduce total emissions and congestion. Waze could use the good press, as it has drawn criticism for increasing traffic on once-quiet streets. Waze Carpool, which launched last year, has to contend with a decades-long trend away from carpooling. Carpooling was more common when the suburbs were less built out and gas was more expensive. Now the percentage of Americans who own cars and the number of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) have steadily increased, so the task of inspiring more Americans to carpool is a big one.
FULL STORY: Can Waze Convince Commuters to Carpool Again?
Difficult Data to Understand: City Drivers Logging More Miles, Rural Drivers Fewer
As America's VMT returns to record highs, more of the miles are coming from cities than ever before.
Waze Launches New Carpooling Feature
A carpooling feature in the Waze app, tested in the San Francisco Bay Area and Israel, will soon be available around the country.
Transit Use Thrives on Destination Density
If jobs, services, and other urban amenities are concentrated downtown, suburbanites can use transit to get there quickly without a car. Job sprawl makes transit useless outside central districts.
Planning for Congestion Relief
The third and final installment of Planetizen's examination of the role of the planning profession in both perpetuating and solving traffic congestion.
Minneapolis Housing Plan a Success—Not for the Reason You Think
Housing advocates praise the city’s move to eliminate single-family zoning by legalizing triplexes on single-family lots, but that isn’t why housing construction is growing.
Car Noise Is Killing Us
It’s not just traffic collisions that kill—a new study from researcher at Rutgers finds that the loud noises emanating from cars has direct impact on heart health in Americans.
Houston Bike Summit Makes In-Person Return
The event will focus on improving bike safety and continuing maintenance on the city's growing network of bike lanes and trails.
Austin’s Transit CEO Moving to D.C.
After overseeing a major system redesign and plans for its largest-ever expansion, the head of Capital Metro will take over Washington, D.C.’s transit agency.
NYC 25x25 Plan Would Reclaim ‘13 Central Parks’ From Cars
A plan backed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams would repurpose 25 percent of the city’s street space for multimodal transportation and pedestrian plazas.
City of Malibu
EMC Planning Group Inc.
Jefferson Parish
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Harvard GSD Executive Education
City of Rohnert Park
City of Hot Springs
City of Lakeway, Texas
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Hand Drawing Master Plans
This course aims to provide an introduction into Urban Design Sketching focused on how to hand draw master plans using a mix of colored markers.
