The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), UC San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente have announced a partnership with Waze Carpool to encourage employees to carpool to work. Commuters can now use Waze Carpool to pick up a carpool partner on their way into San Francisco hospital campuses that are not well-served by BART and trans-bay transit, thereby reducing solo driving and traffic congestion within the Bay Area’s most congested freeway corridors. UCSF and Kaiser Permanente will use Waze Carpool as a tool to reduce traffic and parking crunch around their Mission Bay, Geary and Parnassus campuses.
Waze launched Waze Carpool in the Bay Area last year to connect riders and drivers with nearly identical commutes based on their home and work addresses. Waze’s advanced mapping capabilities connect carpool partners from the same local communities, making it easy to carpool all for the shared cost of gas — resulting in less traffic and congestion during rush hour.
As part of the partnership, UCSF and Kaiser Permanente will offer Waze Carpool as an option in their transportation demand management programs aimed at reducing single-occupancy vehicle driving. The MTC, UCSF and Kaiser Permanente partnership opens up carpooling to a significant number of Bay Area commuters.
“The partnership with Waze, UCSF and Kaiser,” noted Steve Heminger, MTC’s executive director, “is part of an MTC initiative known as Bay Bridge Forward that delivers near-term operational improvements to move more people rather than more cars across the bridge. Because of UCSF and Kaiser Permanente’s large employee base and proximity to one another, using Waze Carpool expands the options available for commuters who want faster and cheaper alternatives to driving alone. And it’s a tool that can help improve mobility and reduce congestion throughout the region.”
Riders and drivers can join Waze Carpool’s trusted community by downloading the app from Google Play or the App Store. New registrants will receive two free rides upon downloading the free Waze Carpool apps — Waze (for drivers) and Waze Rider (for passengers) on iOS or Android. Additionally, for a limited time, UCSF and Kaiser Permanente employees will receive an additional free ride when they register under their work email addresses.
“After a successful pilot program, we are pleased to expand Waze Carpool through our partnerships with MTC, UCSF and Kaiser Permanente to help minimize parking and traffic issues near their campuses,” said Josh Fried, Waze Carpool’s head of business development. “With more than 900,000 Waze users in the Bay Area, this partnership will help reduce traffic throughout these neighborhoods and across the city and region.”
