Google hasn’t done much with Waze since it acquired the crowd-sourced navigation app back in 2013, but it looks like that’s about to change. On Tuesday, Waze announced on its official blog that it’s launching its own SDK, known as Waze Transport SDK, and that it already has a number of partners that plan to integrate Waze into their own service. Lyft is perhaps the most-notable of the seven partners, because Waze’s real-time traffic updates and route optimization will give the ride-sharing company a much-needed edge over Uber.
Waze, the Google-owned navigation app that uses crowdsourced data to warn you about incidents on the road, has announced a number of partnerships today with travel and transportation companies, including Lyft and Cabify. The companies will all be integrating Waze’s Transport SDK software into their own applications to provide drivers with real time route information. Waze will benefit from the partnerships by using the data gathered to give more information to its own users. It will certainly make life easier for drivers who may have been using Waze in addition to their employer’s app to check on road accidents and closures in the past. With partners in the transport, food delivery and even emergency services space, being able to find the quickest and most efficient route will be beneficial to all parties involved. It will cut down response time in emergencies and allow taxi drivers to take more fares, as well as getting deliveries to customers quicker. The announcement of Transport SDK shows that Google is still actively working on Waze despite being quiet about it since the acquisition over two years ago.
