Waze is finally adding one of its most-requested features - and it could help drivers save lots of money

• Waze on Monday said it is adding toll prices for route options inside its app.
• The app will always show drivers a free option if the fastest route is tolled, as well as prices for any other options.
• We spoke to a product manager at the Google-owned navigation app about the gargantuan effort that was involved in mapping some 400,000 tolls.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Waze has long helped drivers predict how long a trip will take, and now the Google-owned company will help them predict costs too.

The crowd-sourced navigation app on Monday announced a new toll pricing feature, one that the company says has been one of the most requested tools for some time.

Moriah Royz, a project manager at Waze, said the app will now show drivers three different route options: the fastest, including toll prices; a free option; for the fastest route, as well as a possible third option.

But building the tool wasn't as simple as mapping highways or codifying something like individual speed limits for highways or roads. There are more than 5,000 toll roads in the continental United States, in addition to tolled bridges and tunnels. What's more, some of those tolls are dynamic and can have different prices depending on time of day, direction, type of car, occupants, and more.

Royz said Waze couldn't have done it without vast team of volunteers who help to build the app's maps, who offer edits and keep the streets up to date all for the love of maps.

"They actually mapped over 400,000 toll roads, bridges, tunnels, and ferries around the US and Canada over the past couple of months," she said in an interview.

"Time is money," she continued. "Until now, Waze was trying to save you time by eliminating your time in traffic, now we also try to save our users as much money as possible."

Waze's CEO, Noam Bardin, revealed Business Insider last year more about this community of map makers, and how the company keeps them involved at every step of the app's evolution. You can read that full interview here.

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