Webinar Replay #48: Mastering Mobile Technology in the Trucking Industry

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Steve Kessler: Good morning, everyone welcome to our Infinit-I Workforce Solutions Fast Forward Webinar Series. My name’s Steve Kessler, and I’ll be hosting the program today. So I appreciate you all taking some time out of your day to join us.

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Steve Kessler: I think we’ve got a really great topic this morning. the topic today is navigating the road ahead, mastering mobile technology in the trucking industry.

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Steve Kessler: So I think that’s a great topic. And tell you what I like for you all to do. Why don’t you jump on the chat and just type in who you are and maybe who you work for and where you’re where you located. So we kind of get a sense where you all are out there.

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Steve Kessler: And while you’re doing that I’m going to introduce a couple of folks here. I want you all to welcome Mark Rhea. Marks kind of a regular on our program here, Mark. Say,

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Steve Kessler: truck transportation executive. I’ve been in this business for 35 years or more. I’ve known Mark a long time

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Steve Kessler: marks a certified director of safety under the Nat. Me. And txt program

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Steve Kessler: marks a license CDL and CMV. Inspector, and as also on the freight Logistics Advisory Board for the Council of governments of North Texas

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Steve Kessler: and also on the board at the North Central Texas Interlink. So Mark, welcome. What do you think about our topic today?

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Mark Rhea: you know, this technology just kind of makes me dizzy these days. It just keeps coming. I’ve been, as as you said, been in this business a long time. And

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Mark Rhea: the the technology is coming is coming fast. Some of it work some of it. So maybe a little suspect. But luckily today we’ve got what I would call a pioneer in the world of mobile communication and telematics and transportation technology that I’ve worked with for many, many. He introduced me to electronic logs, as a matter of fact, and and truck tracking. So Mr. John Piper will be very instrumental in in in trying to

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Steve Kessler: get us to understand the values. And what’s out there in the marketplace today? Those are kind words, mark good. So everybody let me introduce John John.

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Steve Kessler: like, Mark said as a thought leader in the field of transportation technology and and business innovation is very passionate about kind of pushing the boundaries and exploring new possibilities out there. He’s dedicated this career to helping organizations leverage the power of technology to drive their growth and success

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Steve Kessler: mark is is currently the host of the road home, which is a podcast dedicated to making a difference in lives of Think about 12,000 truck drivers that he reaches every month

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Steve Kessler: John started his career in Operations management with First Fleet, Inc. In the Murphy’s Bar. Excuse me, Murphy’s Borough, Tennessee.

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Steve Kessler: and the last 20 plus years with Qualcomm the cloud software sky bit smart drive Dbat sports and has now joined add on systems which is a leading technology software and consulting firm as the VP of marketing there.

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Steve Kessler: John’s been instrumental in guiding numerous companies towards digital transformation. He has a deep understanding of emerging technologies and their potential impact on your business.

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Steve Kessler: So he’s helped clients across the transportation in this industry harness.

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Steve Kessler: You know the power of artificial intelligence, cloud computing data, analytics, telematics, all those things help you to gain a competitive advantage.

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Steve Kessler: John’s a native of Kentucky, holds a degree from Western Kentucky University, and an Mba. From Baylor university.

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Steve Kessler: You should also know John is a very sought after consultant

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Steve Kessler: speaker and advisor. he’s known for his ability to communicate. you know, really complex concepts that and do that in a relatable. And you know, I’d say compelling manner.

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Steve Kessler: So through his work with add on systems, he continues to, you know, shape the future of technology and inspire others to embrace it, and sees new opportunities in this digital age.

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Steve Kessler: So John, having said all that, I’m gonna turn the program over to you.

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John Piper: Welcome, John Steve. Thanks for the warm introduction. Mark Ray. Thank you for those kind words. And you mentioned Dizzy. But I’m sitting there listening to Steve. tell about my background. And I’m like, is that really me? But the bottom line is about man. We’ve been doing this a long time. We’ve seen a lot of change, and it’s an exciting time to be in the transportation

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John Piper: technology sector. And that’s what we want to cover our short time together this morning. I’ve seen a lot of

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John Piper: evolution and change in our industry like Mark mentioned. I worked with when he was in

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John Piper: a Vp. Of operations at a large fleet here in North Texas, introduced

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John Piper: electronic communications, GPS

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John Piper: communications to drivers it real rudimentary form, text-based messaging.

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John Piper: And we’re going to show you the evolution now. And it really is dizzy, dizzying, and confusing to a lot of drivers, fleet operations, safety professionals, and and so many more that are

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John Piper: tune into this webinar, and that’ll be watching on the replay. So this gets started. You know, it’s so important

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John Piper: to keep drivers connected. Now, you know.

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John Piper: customer service

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John Piper: safety operations. They want to have their information in real time. Now, customer service, excellence. A lot of a lot of fleets have so much pressure on them to deliver on time every time

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John Piper: we’ve been talking about it for years. It’s a thank you list business. They expect your drivers to be on time. But when they’re late

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John Piper: they let you know about it. And that’s that can be a problem. So having that communication through mobile technology so important for drivers to get ahead of that and let the shippers and operations know what’s going on with that load. In that particular time

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John Piper: training and Development Company culture.

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John Piper: so much more can be delivered now through that mobile experience unlike never before. And a lot of drivers

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John Piper: we don’t get to see, but every couple of weeks

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John Piper: a lot of over the road drivers are out there for 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks, sometimes 3, 4 months at a time versus those Ltl. Or contract dedicated or private fleet drivers. So you have to be thinking in terms of technology that can reach

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John Piper: both those drivers that are home each and every night, and those that you don’t see. But maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

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John Piper: like we’ve talked

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John Piper: mostly operations, safety folks owners. They’re getting bombarded. I personally get bombarded with technology solutions

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John Piper: for my business each and every day for Folks that want to do work here at add on systems, consult with Sa software and

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John Piper: new technology, make our business better. I know the fleets get bombarded as well. So couple of things to consider here, you know, security we hear about malware hacking. You know, it’s so important to have a secure network. And when you have all this technology out there connecting to drivers. And in the Tractors technology installed on the tractor, on the trailer, on the refur unit.

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John Piper: There is big concern that people can get on those networks and maybe adjust

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John Piper: you refur temperature or change it unbeknownst to you, maybe change your speed on your tractor, so we don’t hear a lot about that. But it’s becoming more and more prevalent as I go around the country and talk to CIO CTO’s technology

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John Piper: network administrators, folks like that are concerned about that. So keep that in mind.

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John Piper: some technology solves some of the problems, but not all. You may have a mixed fleet of drivers.

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John Piper: and you got to think in terms of hey, what’s going to be the best common denominator? The solution? It is going to help

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John Piper: all my drivers, or, more importantly, how you can customize applications to fit. Perhaps you’re over the road fleet.

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John Piper: perhaps fit your dedicated contract customer fleet. Perhaps your

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John Piper: drive an fleet versus your refrigerated fleet versus your flatbed fleet or your final mile delivery fleet. Those are all things you need to take into consideration when you’re selecting technology.

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John Piper: and if any any of us have been sitting down with the CFO typically, they go to the last item on that spreadsheet when you’re looking at Roi cost

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John Piper: a lot of times. The person writing the check does not consider all the value and really the customer experience versus just the cost. And and today’s freight market. No secret cost is

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John Piper: so much more important today than it was just 18 months ago, 24 months ago. when freight volumes were higher and freight rates were higher, so cost is obviously at the top of everybody’s a awareness.

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John Piper: And, Steve, I know you mentioned people in the chat. I’m not going to be watching the chat right now, but at the end we’ll have Q. A. So

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John Piper: as I’m going through here, I like to make this conversational, but we will save the questions. So the end, and we’ll try to get to most of those here in just a few minutes on the Q. A

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John Piper: I got I mentioned Mark raised a great example. I think it was 1997, 1998. We were working with a fleet he was managing, and it was a very large GPS tracking device

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John Piper: in tech space messaging. And that was really it. And everybody thought, Wow, how how great is this? We can keep up with our drivers. You know we know where they are once an hour, or if they send in a message, we can kind of see where they are in terms of are they going to make their delivery on time? But there wasn’t much integration with safety. No electronic logs have hadn’t become prevalent at that time, but it was a tool instead of the drivers having to call in from a pay phone.

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John Piper: and the young folks here on the webinar today. You might have to Google images of what a payphone looks like.

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John Piper: because there aren’t any pay phones. I I think I saw some in a hotel recently.

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John Piper: But we all have cell phones now. So it’s a lot easier to get a hold of a driver. And then, you see a picture of the cell phone there. Once the cell phones and the smartphones became more prevalent.

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John Piper: It was easier to get information to the driver. Stay connected

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John Piper: made the driver’s life so much better versus having to call for dispatch or stay in that truck. Stay tether to that tractor, and we’ll talk about the issues of parking here in a minute. But can you imagine being a professional driver waiting for dispatch?

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John Piper: And the only way you know you’re going to get a dispatch is to go out and check that display

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John Piper: that monochrome display in your tractor

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John Piper: every couple of hours while you’re maybe trying to get some rest, or you’re in a truck. Stop having dinner getting a shower things have changed. And now we see a lot of tablet

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John Piper: tablet base. I’ve got a an ipad here right now. I use a a tablet myself, but android tablets, iphone tablets.

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John Piper: It’s just a way to to further connect drivers

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John Piper: or remote workers can be maintenance technicians as well to your business, which is so powerful.

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Mark Rhea: Yes, John, one of the things we learned is is obviously your customers want to know where that freight is all the time.

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Mark Rhea: and and I think one of the things that has emerged is, yes, tracking is important. Where’s where’s my freight. Where is it when it’s gonna but how do you convert that into improvement in crash frequency and things then on the safety side has really really taken off in the last few years. So

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Mark Rhea: it, it’s got multiple values to include, where is my freight? Is it on time?

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Mark Rhea: But that, also

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Mark Rhea: used correctly, can improve crash frequency.

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John Piper: Yeah, Mark, that’s a great segue. You know, this is just kind of a a slide to get people to think about what’s the impact

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John Piper: with the technology on our business. And I can’t think of a more prolific piece of technology in the last couple of years. I was early I saw this early on, probably 7, 8 years ago, forward, facing cameras and inward facing cameras.

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John Piper: And there’s a lot of things actually, we do here at add on systems as well, where we take all this data.

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John Piper: because what we found Mark historically is, there’s so much information. And all these silos, these different systems in the Tms system and the the camera provider usually has their own user interface. And all that data sits over in another system. And then there’s a claim system over here. So bringing all that together.

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John Piper: using cameras to mitigate risk before it happens. That’s the key.

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John Piper: You know, everyone has tools now to how how you handle a accident, a a collision? hopefully. I hate to talk about it, but it’s a necessary part of our business fatalities, you know, and I was at a safety meeting down in Dallas with a lot of law enforcement, talking about the when you’re the first responder on a fatality.

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John Piper: How you deal with that. And you know, it’s it’s so tough. So we’re all about

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John Piper: 0 fatalities out there. We know it’s a that’s a stretch goal.

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John Piper: But with the camera technology mark, you can mitigate risk in advance. You can see certain behavior. You know, John Piper has certain trends

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John Piper: driving at

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John Piper: 8 30 in the morning versus 8 30 at night, and there’s certain triggers. Now. AI has become a big part of this artificial intelligence and tying into other systems in the truck as well with speed

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John Piper: all the data that’s on that tractor, and it gives really safety and risk professionals and operations, people

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John Piper: and ownership really a lot of tools to help coach. And I know vertical alliance. So Infinit-I the platform that that you guys provide is all about training and getting ahead of a potential accent. So so great points altogether

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John Piper: logging. you know, I remember when I first started operations.

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John Piper: We had a dedicated contract carriage business. The drivers will be out for 2 or 3 days at a time, very safe drivers.

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John Piper: but they would come back, you know a lot of times at 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning, 8 in the morning. Kind of catch up their logs on paper. You know. I know the safety professionals don’t want me to say that. But that was just a fact

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John Piper: that was back in the the mid to late nineties. nowadays. There was a lot of pushback on electronic logging

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John Piper: only from drivers, especially independent contractors. That thought, Hey, this is going to impact my knowledge which is going to impact my pay

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John Piper: when I first got in trucking. I remember a driver like Week one, said John.

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John Piper: and he patted his wallet on the back of his rang or deans. He was a great driver from Somerset, Kentucky said, as long as you don’t mess with the driver’s pay

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John Piper: you’ll be all right in this business, and that’s been true, and that’s been true. When drivers feel like they’re not getting paid properly, you will hear about it. Everybody on here knows what I’m talking about. But but now the transition to electronic logs

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John Piper: has been so positive because now fleets no, everyone’s on the same playing field drivers like it because it’s less headache. It’s less work. Drivers do not want administrative work. Is that fair to say more? Absolutely the the the elimination of having to do a recap. Mathematics is what was a big plus.

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John Piper: Yeah good stuff. And there’s so many technologies out there. Now, you know, eld really brought a lot of

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John Piper: new providers to the forefront. And there’s a plethora, you know, we don’t necessarily recommend which ones you want to use. You know, we can help you guide you on that. But there, there’s a lot of great solutions out there.

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John Piper: you know, fleet management software. That’s another one. That lot of fleets have used the same platform for for many years. They they tweak it, they modify it. it’s important to have software in your business

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John Piper: that can do what you need it to do. And it’s simple and effective.

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John Piper: One thing that ties into safety

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John Piper: is route optimization. Couple of things here

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John Piper: there’s fleet controlled routing where a lot of the larger fleets that I work with will send out a class aid specific route potentially, even with fuel stops

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John Piper: like you can see on this display. Down here you can see my mouse moving.

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John Piper: This route here has a fuel stop, and that’s usually tied into to a fuel optimization, figuring out, using all this data and analytics to figure out, hey, where’s the best place to fuel based on my route.

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John Piper: based on the cost of the fuel, and it drops it right into the route.

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John Piper: The flip side of that is driver control routing. There’s a thing called app fatigue, and if, if I showed you my

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John Piper: my iphone here, I’ve got way too many apps from the app store. I’m a big fan of

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John Piper: technology, productivity, tools, learning. Podcast I listen a lot of podcasts.

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John Piper: But when the drivers in control of routing themselves, using a

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John Piper: see, apple maps, Google, navigation, whatever other, there’s many tools out there. They’re not necessarily class Aid specific might get that driver into an area where, as a safety professional or fleet owner, you do not want that driver to get into, and that’s a concern. So make sure you’re looking at class 8 specific navigation tools

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John Piper: and and productivity tools

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John Piper: to not overwhelm your driver and and really be in control. There’s some things through what we call Mdm. Mobile device management where you can lock down the tablet that the driver is using where they can only use certain apps. And that’s something that we recommend whole. Hardly. But if they’re using their own smartphone device.

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John Piper: certain things you you can’t control there, especially if they’re an independent contractor.

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John Piper: Excuse me. Another thing I I do want to talk about before I move on is truck parking. Let’s go back. One actually

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John Piper: truck parking everywhere I go now is a problem everybody talks about truck parking.

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John Piper: the Federal Government cannot fund and build adequate parking States can’t adequately fund and build

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John Piper: truck parking. The truck stops or overwhelmed. Now you see, trucks parked on the shoulders, which is very unsafe. But here’s an example. You can see this yellow

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John Piper: on the route display here that that’s using the calculation to determine that that driver is going to run out of hours in that spot.

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John Piper: Now, this particular tool

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John Piper: it’s a tool from Elliot’s technologies. The driver could click on there, get points of interest

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John Piper: and look specifically for truck parking. And now drivers can reserve trick parking in advance. So I think a key takeaway here for driver, fatigue driver.

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John Piper: buy in. To stay working with your fleet is to plan their route in advance, so they know where they’re going to be able to put their head down at night. You know, driver, fatigue, driver, health and wellness is a big issue that I’m a a proponent of. We talk about a lot on the road, home, podcast as well.

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John Piper: But if the driver’s got stress and worry and fear on where they’re going to park that night

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John Piper: when they run out of hours.

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John Piper: It makes their whole day their whole, you know. 8, 10 11 h driving.

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John Piper: they’re thinking about that. And that’s the last thing you want as a safety professionals where they’re going to park at night. And, Mark, I don’t know if you’ve seen any any other solutions, but it’s a real problem in our industry.

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Mark Rhea: It it’s a real problem it’s easy to identify and very difficult to solve. So I think there are obviously mobile communication

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Mark Rhea: technologies that can

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Mark Rhea: can at least assist in trip planning and helping the driver and and Steve, I know we’ve got content on that that we can get out to drivers, on, on, on, on our system learning management system. But it’s clearly a very important component of trip planning. So

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John Piper: yeah, great points. And you know, technology telematics has come so far from the early days. you know, trailer telematics. I just came from the Truckload Carriers Association, a refrigerated conference, and you know, with

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John Piper: with

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John Piper: driver short, you know some people say we we have a driver shorter. Some people say we don’t, but I think most people think we do. And you know, putting traders intermodal traders on the on the rail being able to track not only where that

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John Piper: intermodal trailer is, but also the temperatures on that trailer, and maybe even down to the pallet, is becoming very powerful. A lot of shippers want to be able to have that data

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John Piper: and measure exceptions. They want to know, hey? When something’s wrong, or that

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John Piper: fuel tank on that intermodal trailer is running low.

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John Piper: Because do you want to leave it up to the the railroad to manage your fuel? You want to be able to know, hey? At that next stop we need to top off or fill up that intermodal fuel tank on that refrigeration unit. Freight tracking, getting down to specifics.

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John Piper: you know, with the final mile deliveries and the Amazons of the world.

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John Piper: it’s amazing that technology where you can literally click on your phone and figure out where where your shipment is down to the box level. And I know we’re talking to a lot of truckload type

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John Piper: customers and and folks in the shipping community. But it’s that’s where it’s headed. And it’s really powerful.

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John Piper: Most importantly, shipper visibility. In the old days that shipper would call dispatch and dispatch would have to say, I’ll call you back, and they’d have to call the driver

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John Piper: well, not anymore. A lot of times systems and getting back to the software system will send information based on that customer

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John Piper: and keep that shipper updated in near real time, either through their Tms system through edi electronic data, interchange or other systems through Apis and and websites.

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John Piper: It gives shippers so much more visibility than they’ve ever had before.

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John Piper: We’ve seen a big movement to replacing proprietary systems in the truck. You know, old monochrome, or even some basic color

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John Piper: keyboards where now fleets can pick and choose best in class applications to run their business. They’re not.

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John Piper: It’s kind of like the app store apple or the Google play store in Google. where fleets are picking technology solutions

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John Piper: that can mix and match to solve

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John Piper: real world problems. And that’s real powerful. If you get on that paradigm shift that

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John Piper: you’re not necessarily stuck with one vendor anymore. That was the way it was for many, many years, and still a lot of fleets, or working with just one vendor to provide all their telematic solutions

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John Piper: we’re seeing now where I think 42% of all drivers have

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John Piper: an apple device now

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John Piper: where it’s not too long ago it was predominantly android. We see a lot of fleets due to cost go with an android tablet in the truck. Some of them put apple

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John Piper: tablets in the truck for a variety of reasons, but it gives you flexibility to.

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John Piper: and a lot of times

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John Piper: the smartphone app, whether it’s on the tablet that the company provides.

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John Piper: it works and feels the same way when you’re on your personal device, and that’s real powerful. So now the drivers can stay disconnected from the truck.

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John Piper: they can also go watch their grandson or their son play a a little like baseball game. or go to the lake knowing they’re waiting on a dispatch. and they can check their dispatch

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John Piper: from watching the sunset in East Texas, just the same way they can if they’re in Northern California, and it gives them a lot of freedom and flexibility to work really, the way they want to work. And independent contractors, truck drivers, they like to be independent. That’s really why they they drive and get out on the open road.

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John Piper: Couple of things to consider when you’re evaluating, selecting mobile technology solutions.

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John Piper: What problem do you want to solve. Because different people in the organization want to solve different problems and especially larger fleets. You’ve got safety involved. You’ve got finance.

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John Piper: You’ve got operations. You’ve got ownership.

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John Piper: You might have investors. You got all these people involved in making technology decisions. You got to really hone it into what are the top?

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John Piper: 2 or 3 things you want to change in your business

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John Piper: compatibility with the existing systems. A lot of the customers. I do it today. Have you

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John Piper: millions of dollars invested in their platform, their systems. They do not want to yank all that out. They want to. Necessarily, they want to add on to it. Add some new technology, maybe connect through Apis or some custom integration. Now some fleets are looking to completely transform their business and and yank it out. But that’s not something. I would necessarily recommend that you’re a really small fleet.

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John Piper: Be transparent with your vendor. you know. Just have an open and honest dialogue, you know a lot of vendors when they have the sales hat on.

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John Piper: you’re a little careful on what you want to share with them, or vice versa. The more transparent. You can be

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John Piper: talking with technology vendors.

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John Piper: hardware vendors, software vendors. Any partner I really like to use the word partner, because when you work with a partner. They understand your business, you know, like and trust them.

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John Piper: And I think that’s the key to having a successful long-term relationship.

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John Piper: And then, finally.

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John Piper: you can have the greatest technology solution out there. But if the implementation team, especially on the customer side, is is not good communicators. They’re not on board with working with the partner. It usually takes many people, many hands.

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John Piper: to get this done. Make sure you have the right people in place and the right expectations you’re setting

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John Piper: whether it’s weekly by weekly team calls and have a good communication what’s worked well for our clients is having a

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John Piper: document that is shared amongst

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John Piper: both fleet and technology providers. So everyone’s on the same page. And that’s a

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John Piper: much like a a Google sheet. It’s more sophisticated than that. But everyone that understands Google knows when you make changes to it. in real time, everyone sees the changes and everyone’s on the same page. None of this email and back and forth those types of things so very important, having the right team in place when you’re making a transition in any type of technology.

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John Piper: some of the challenges that I’ve seen, and it’s just human nature whether you’re working with a sports team or working with a school administrators. Whenever there’s change coming as human beings, we’re Most of us are resistance to change. So be prepared for that

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John Piper: employee, training you

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John Piper: a lot of fleets I’ve dealt with. They’ve been doing it the same way for 1015, 20 years

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John Piper: and getting that mindset, you know, I’ll just remind you, Sears Blockbuster video. There’s companies out there. Jc. Penny.

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John Piper: they kind of did it the the same way, over and over. And a lot of their leadership would say, You know, that’s the way we’ve always done in this workforce.

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John Piper: Well, how many of you have gone out to blockbuster video and rented a video lately?

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John Piper: You get my point. data security. Make sure that you have the things in place

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John Piper: to protect your data. especially your vendor.

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John Piper: When your vendor is grabbing data from your system. Make sure that that’s protected something that probably a lot of you have not thought about. But they’re bringing your data into their systems

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John Piper: and vice versa, something to really consider moving forward troubleshooting.

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John Piper: How do you address all these challenges is is so important.

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John Piper: I do want to share just a quick anecdotal story. A company called can be Transportation

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John Piper: approximately 700 trucks in South Sioux City, Nebraska refrigerated Carrier. We’re with one of those proprietary systems for 20 plus years.

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John Piper: and they had some 3 G wireless concerns that we’re gonna have to upgrade their their devices on the trucks, anyway. So so they made a switch.

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John Piper: Our team worked with them closely, and and they just said, Hey, we’re all in this this move. Move forward, and

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John Piper: they trans. And I don’t recommend this to anybody, but they transitioned almost 700 trucks

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John Piper: in about 8 weeks. Once the groundwork was set and some of those previous size I talked about they had the right implementation team in place.

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John Piper: The communication was phenomenal weekly, if not every couple of days.

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John Piper: and it. It is possible, if you got the right mindset and the right buy in, and the beautiful thing

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John Piper: with any fleet is, once you build a foundation, a solid foundation of the technology stack that you want to run. You can add on to it. It’s like building a good foundation on a house or commercial building, you can always add onto it. You can modify it. You can enhance what you’re doing. And that’s what we see. A lot of successful companies do

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John Piper: technology. I, I personally have a test of cyber truck order, no pick up truck. This is a big test of cyber truck we’re seeing so much we’re seeing so much change Mark and I had a chance to visit Kodak robotics down the south of Dallas. They’re a silicon Valley based Company. That’s doing some of the autonomous truck we’re seeing so much out there.

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John Piper: So at what point, you know, do you maximize your technology

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John Piper: to impact your business. there’s that cost.

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John Piper: you know, value, add relationship. But the point of this slide is, there’s so much out there, this much future thinking technology. I know when I pull customers.

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John Piper: for the over the road class, 8 trucks.

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John Piper: Not a whole lot of them are ordering or thinking about 100% Evs. But maybe there’s a mix there. Maybe a yard truck

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John Piper: might be some technology that they can weave in.

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John Piper: It impacts, you know, their business in a positive way.

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John Piper: Mark. I know, Steve. I ran through that fairly quickly. And the goal here is to not really solve everyone’s problems today. But let him know that we have a we’re a resource both here, you know, vertical alliance, and I’m willing to help. But I know I think we’ve got. I could see in the chat box quite a few comments, questions, and I know we had some questions prior to the webinar. So with that I’ll turn it back over to you guys for some. Q. A.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah. Thanks, John. excellent information. we do actually have some some questions here. And I’ll just you know. Start here and pose a few of them to you.

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Steve Kessler: you know, we we’re talking about mobile communication and someone’s asking about, you know. Tell us about cameras and mobile communication, you know, there’s a lot of information, a lot of triggered events. What’s relevant? What’s not, you know. And there’s a driver coaching part to this, too, and someone is actually curious about how that might play out in lawsuit discovery.

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Steve Kessler: So I’m curious to hear your comments about that?

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John Piper: Yeah, yeah, great question. And that’s really at the top of everyone’s mind, that is, either considering cameras has cameras

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John Piper: or some of the liability is, if you don’t have cameras, you know you’re you’re kind of up to the, he said. She said. So we’re we’re in kind of a unique situation that I haven’t

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John Piper: seen in my, you know, 25 year history and technology where

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John Piper: a lot of folks on the litigation side would say, You know what

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John Piper: and the risk side would say.

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John Piper: If we have at least a forward facing camera.

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John Piper: we know what happened, and if it’s our fault.

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John Piper: we know

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John Piper: what we need to do to either settle it, or how to how to go to court versus extend out a a potential lawsuit or a settlement for months on months

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John Piper: and having an inward facing camera, you know historically, a lot of fleet. We’re concerned that. Oh, if I have a driver facing in on John, you know John doesn’t necessarily want to have a camera on

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John Piper: on me all day while I’m driving, but what they find is it makes the fleet safer. It makes John safer.

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John Piper: and if the message is that you can return John’s home safely to his or her family

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John Piper: that is so valuable, and that’s the message. It’s not about beating up the driver that hey? We got you, you know, eating a

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John Piper: eating a big Mac going down the road again, or drinking a big gulp. It’s about reinforcement improving the situation, and those will trigger some events to your question. And it’s a coaching opportunity. So you know, we we just saw

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John Piper: the last major. There was a British open. All those professional golfers have coaches. They have video they’re using to get better Tiger Woods as a coach with them all the time. They’re seeing video to get better.

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John Piper: not to tell them that they stunk it up. But everybody’s using video and coaching. So why not use it in the trucking industry?

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John Piper: And that final part of the 2 part question about litigation. you know, nuclear verdict is a big deal, you know. There’s a lot of concern around the country, depend on what state you’re in, what jurisdiction you’re in

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John Piper: that

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John Piper: you know. There’s been verdicts 2030, 40, a hundred 1 million dollars recently. And as an industry, we know that the truck drivers are the safest drivers really, in North America.

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John Piper: but when they are involved in a collision it’s 80,000 pounds. It’s usually doesn’t go well, and everybody wants to point fingers at the big truck, you know, big truck bad.

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John Piper: So I really believe camera technology leveraging inward and outward facing cameras. And some of them now have side cameras

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John Piper: multiple cameras, you know, up to maybe 8 cameras surrounding the truck. It’s gonna prove to be a great solution for risk mitigation risk management an improving driver behavior and safety long term.

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Steve Kessler: And I absolutely agree. I I think. you know, Mark and I hear from quite a few trucking companies, and most everybody today is embraced the cameras. Some are still little concerned about the inward facing ones, but

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Steve Kessler: there are plenty of things that we’ve heard back. We’re that in facing camera made all the difference in the world, too. So but you’re absolutely dead on if you’re capturing that video, if you’re not using that as an opportunity to train your drivers.

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Steve Kessler: you’re really kind of missing the whole value of the the cameras to begin with. and certainly that video footage is something that can easily be used as a training tool.

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Steve Kessler: we have quite a few of our clients that use that in our system and make sure that people get to see those events

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Steve Kessler: try to move on here. in our timeframe. another question that came up. someone’s asking, do these technologies work with mobile communication, and they’re speaking about Lane departure, crash, avoidance, speed management. Wonder if you could speak a little bit to that thought.

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John Piper: yeah, great questions to you. But I do want to answer this one live question that ties back to cameras and what we’re talking about right here. Sonya?

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John Piper: asked. How important is it for drivers not to block their cameras? Will it affect

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John Piper: a lot of the camera technology is.

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John Piper: we’ll trigger through AI that the the cameras been blocked. you know. Drivers will put either a hat over it, or

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John Piper: or tape or things like that. And the system will recognize that and really alert operations dispatch what’s going on. So

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John Piper: that would be a problem. That would be a problem. So you want to catch that in advance. if you’re in operations safety risk, because it would not be a good thing if if your drivers involved in a collision, and it was found that the driver was negligent. because they put the something blocking over that camera. But I would always defer to an attorney, and had, you know, I’m not an attorney, but a great question. There, Sonya.

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John Piper: yes, Steve, a lot of the the camera systems

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John Piper: are so smart now they have their own telematics built in, and they are talking to the cloud already. They’re grabbing stuff from the tractor, the engine, and they’re starting to talk to multiple systems. there’s all kinds of safety collision avoidance.

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John Piper: you know, radar lidar on the trucks. Now that these smart camera systems are starting to talk to and get notifications.

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John Piper: you know, I know now where

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John Piper: if a driver’s going down the road and they put on their left blinker to get into the other lane.

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John Piper: That that camera system knows that, hey? The left blinkers on? I’m not crossing the center line so it won’t trigger, you know. Hey? Across the center line, beat, beat, beat, beep, and beep at me, and be, you know, let the risk management team the safety team know? So

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John Piper: yeah, it’s kind of about like becoming a smart truck. All the technology

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John Piper: it can get kind of busy in there. But all the oems are are trying to start to work with each other, and the telematics providers are starting to try to grab data off that Ecm, that electronic control module on the tractor to really report what’s really going on in real time. with that driver.

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Steve Kessler: Great thanks. Another question here. Obviously, this person is here in Texas. Says it’s hot here in Texas.

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Steve Kessler: what’s new with tire pressure and wheel temp. Some sensors?

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John Piper: Yes, sir, yeah. I You know I’m a defensive driver. I I I had an accident when I was about 18 and A and a zooped up Camaro back in Kentucky, and from that point on I started driving a whole lot slower and a lot more defensive.

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John Piper: So the reason I bring all that up is when I’m going down the Highways and Texas, or I was in Utah last week.

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John Piper: this time of year. I’m seeing you know what old school truckers call gators or parts of tires coming on the road. And it’s it’s a it’s a problem it’s a real problem for that trucker.

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John Piper: It just had a blow out.

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John Piper: and I saw one just the other day that started catching fire. I don’t know if it’s a combination of the tire the break overheated. But when it becomes a hundred degrees, and above and Texas Phoenix, Arizona is like 1 15.

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John Piper: You gotta be really careful in this entire inflation and entire inflation notification systems are so important to keep tires inflated properly.

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John Piper: because, you know, I’m not a a scientist, but I know when when it gets hot out there. The inflation expands, and when it gets cold it

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John Piper: contracts, and having proper inflation is so important for a couple of reasons, safety, but also

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John Piper: your fuel knowledge, you know, having proper inflation and the cost of Mark, what’s the cost of a of a new trailer tire these days? It’s it’s gone way out there. Now it it’s

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John Piper: 500 bucks or more. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, when you have a blowout just and then the service call. I mean, it’s expensive. So tire inflation systems, a lot of fleet for getting those spec out when they order trailers. Obviously tractors. But thanks to great technology, great tool. And they’re starting to talk to other systems. As well notify the driver

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John Piper: of the exception even back to dispatch that, hey? That that left inner tire on that trailer number a 67 59

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John Piper: looks like it. It may

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John Piper: the leaking air this. Just take a look at that and be proactive which could really save alive.

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Steve Kessler: Great John, there’s a question that that just popped up on the screen. You may have seen it here from George. I was asking any thoughts on back-end and onboard technology

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Steve Kessler: and data helping with path to decarbonization.

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Steve Kessler: You know, I was. I was trying to multitask and look at the question on the screen. As you were saying, could you repeat the question one more time? Yeah, it is any thoughts on back end and onboard technology and data helping with a path to decarbonization.

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Steve Kessler: I guess that’s more about, you know the efficiency of the truck and what you know, they reduce the carbon footprint.

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John Piper: We’re moving towards electronic. You know what? What’s what’s amazing, Steve is, you know, I really, I talked to a lot of drivers, especially with the road, home, podcast, I always want to hear what the drivers are experiencing.

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John Piper: And

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John Piper: just the the Mpgs alone and our traditional diesel-type tractors.

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John Piper: I’ve gotten so much better than they were, you know, just 7, 8 years ago, you know, I’m hearing things like

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John Piper: 9, 10 miles per gallon, which

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John Piper: in the past. It’s crazy. We got over 6 miles per gallon. You thought, Wow, what are they doing? That’s that’s awesome. And and there’s some things

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John Piper: Ev, I think personally, is really gonna take a lot of time for the big truck, you know, it makes a total sense for local like waste hollers.

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John Piper: also natural gas. I think natural gas hydrogen is starting to get some some talking points. But I mean

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John Piper: to run an ev Here’s an example. I’ve got a friend that provides ev charging stations

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John Piper: for

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John Piper: industrial parks, or if you have a large facility, and you want to have some ev charging stations for your for will vehicles, or your trucks, or whatever he can provide those. He had an industrial facility

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John Piper: by 5 of those.

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John Piper: And then it came back that the electric grid could only support one of them.

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John Piper: So I think that’s the challenge we have right now supplying the electricity for the Ev space to reduce the carbon footprint. And then, secondly.

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John Piper: where is that electricity coming from? Is it coming from a Still a coal fired production plan natural gas fired.

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John Piper: that’s all a big challenge. And that’s really something that

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John Piper: we have to lead

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John Piper: our State legislators probably Washington handle. But like I said, I’ve rented tests as before. I’ve got a test of cyber truck ordered.

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John Piper: So I like the technology, some people are scared of it.

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Steve Kessler: But we’ll see where this goes. Yeah, absolutely

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Steve Kessler: another question here. someone saying, I hear a lot of talk about smart trailers. what is that? Exactly. Can you discuss that a little bit?

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Steve Kessler: They’re talking about, you know, break systems and lamp outing sensors and stuff like that.

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John Piper: Yeah, it’s a combination of just having a really an electronic control module on that trailer that has all these variable sensors like it could even have some cameras, you know. there’s now, especially on dry bands.

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John Piper: There’s cameras that you can put inside the trailer, you know, to to know if, hey? As a trailer, completely empty.

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John Piper: was there forklift damage. You know, the the technology has gotten so phenomenal tying in the tire sensors of the pressure.

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John Piper: higher inflation systems. all this type of technology.

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John Piper: And and that’s and then you tie in a you know, a refrigeration unit. That’s when it gets really smart

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John Piper: where you can control that refrigeration unit. Remotely, you can get diagnostic codes remotely.

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John Piper: So. Now think about just not too many years ago, Steve.

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John Piper: you would have to dispatch a thermal king or a carrier truck out. Say, I mean, we’re here in Texas. I just say out highway 80 out there east of Dallas. on a Friday night.

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John Piper: just to troubleshoot a refer unit.

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John Piper: Now, you might be able to see those fault codes as a Vice President maintenance, right from your smartphone through some technology. So that’s really where it’s headed. Smart trailer. I think we’re gonna see more and more technology around the trailers. as we move forward.

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Steve Kessler: That’s great. here’s one that that I think it’s a very common question. some, you know, someone’s asking about, you know, implementing this kind of technology. And and the question is, can we test the technology to see if it works?

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Steve Kessler: And second, the follow up behind. That is, what should you expect from your vendor to support?

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Steve Kessler: this technology?

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John Piper: Yeah. Most technology vendors that I’ve worked with or partnered with. we’ll support what we would call, or what I term as a pilot test. It might be a a

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John Piper: production type contract, but there’s some language in there that says, Hey, we’re gonna pilot. say, with 10 drivers, or 20 drivers, or 5 trucks, or 8 trucks, or 10 traders, whatever it might be.

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John Piper: you know, easy. There’s an investment there. I mean, one thing I learned in E. Economics is there’s no such thing as a free launch, so Don’t expect a free pilot, because, you know, a there’s time on both parties, even if it’s quote unquote, free, there’s time and effort involved. Usually there’s a little skin in the game from both parties, but that’s a great way to see if it works for your business. You know. It might work for

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John Piper: very large private fleet private shipper. I won’t mention any names, but in that might not work for your, you know, 90 truck.

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John Piper: you know 110 refur trailer business. So yes, and

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John Piper: as long as the expectations are set properly. I mentioned, I think, in one of the previous slides.

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John Piper: make sure you have the right implementation team, and that’s really both parties. Communication is key and really set those pilot expectations upfront. Where? Hey? Here. Here’s the 2 or 3 problems we want to solve with this technology. And if we do solve this problem, it’s A, it’s a no brainer, you know we’ll spend X dollars

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John Piper: a month per driver, X dollars a month per tractor or trailer

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John Piper: to solve this problem, and the Roi is is just front and center clear. So yeah, you actually, you mentioned John, you know, part of the implementation thing requires that there be some education and training take place. And I think that’s

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Steve Kessler: there’s something that’s pretty important with that all of the technology that we’ve been talking about here. If people don’t understand how to use it properly.

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Steve Kessler: when they do use it properly, it works like it’s supposed to. If they’re not using it correctly or don’t understand how to use it. Then there’s frustration, and perhaps they abandon something like that. So any comments about that.

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John Piper: Certainly. Yeah, it’s kind of like a a going to a great restaurant. You know.

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John Piper: People don’t necessarily talk about the great mail over and over and over again. If somebody has a bad mill there, you hear about it. And that’s what we see a lot in the trucking technology. You know.

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John Piper: technology just for the most part works into a a driver or somebody in operations has a bad experience, or there’s some downtime.

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John Piper: So yeah, it’s it’s just so important

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John Piper: to to make sure it’s right.

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John Piper: And that it works for for both parties. But

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John Piper: one thing we’ve seen to Steve. And this ties right in with, the the Infinit-I Platform is video based training. You know, a lot of the drivers now have a tablet or a smartphone available. And through certain tools. you know, with a new technology, there can be some training videos put together they’re supported on a mobile platform or a phone or a computer. And and you know.

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John Piper: kind of a nice

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John Piper: little plug for Infinit-I. Here is is your platform. There can be a training platform and a modular based training built to support some of the new technology, especially for the drivers. It can’t be in the office for a, you know, 2 day training course, or maybe do some modular based training that reinforces it. In short, increments. You know, I like 4 to 7 min short videos. Some people might say, even shorter than that, or a series of videos. So yeah, great comment.

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Steve Kessler: here’s a a question.

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Steve Kessler: that just popped up on the screen. Here, John, maybe you’ll address this. Maybe it’s something you’ll take private. But the question is, what camera recording devices would you recommend? What system works the best with alerting and sending recordings of collisions, accidents, and other everyday truck issues.

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John Piper: Yeah, there, there’s so many out there. And it really, you know what served me well, and consulting with clients in the past. Steve is

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John Piper: really having a conversation. Understand what problems are trying to solve. There’s no way I could recommend a specific camera solution without knowing exactly what they’re trying to saw, perhaps their budget. What their existing

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John Piper: systems are. You know, they’re Elds. There’s so many variables. So yeah, I appreciate you saying that I’m not going to say publicly, any camera providers. But there’s a lot I’ve worked with in the past, and there’s probably

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John Piper: 4 to 10 different camera providers that I would feel comfortable recommending and working with. So we could definitely take that one offline. There’s a lot of great solutions out there. Yeah, I think that might be a question the person that pose that question maybe to reach out to you and have a more close conversation about that.

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Steve Kessler: Here’s another question, and we’re getting close to an hour in timeframe here, folks, and we try to keep this at less than an hour.

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Steve Kessler: but I I think it’s important to talk a little bit about return on investment here, and I know you’ve touched on it a little bit, John. But you know, I think, things top of mind. Or is it going to have a favorable impact on insurance?

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Steve Kessler: Could it have a good impact on crash frequency fuel consumption. Those are all big huge expenses for trucking. And I wonder if you could share your thoughts about how that’s could improve and provide a positive return, or at least a savings

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Steve Kessler: of money span.

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John Piper: certainly, and and like I mentioned before, whenever there’s an roi put together or here all the time, you know,

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John Piper: technology, chief technology Officer Vp of it, or operations, or the Cfo, you know, talks in terms of hey? We’re, you know, we’re trying to do our best to cost. Justify this, you know. Real simple call justification is, for you know, every $20 you spend.

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John Piper: you get $30 back. You know how many times we go through the ATM and put 20 in and get 30 back. You’ll do it all day long, but a lot of the the cost justifications on technology, or what I call

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John Piper: soft justifications. Or there’s an an X factor that you can always measure one example, and you know the first thing you mentioned was insurance. You know, a lot of larger fleets I work with are self insured up to a certain level and

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John Piper: they don’t really know. You know, when you have say cameras and other safety technology

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John Piper: in your truck.

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John Piper: you can always say, you know what it it definitely saved us, you know.

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John Piper: for major prevental preventable collisions, and maybe it saved us

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John Piper: one fatality because it never happened.

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John Piper: And those are some things you got to factor in like, you know, how does it balance out our our driver satisfaction, you know, if we’re able to send out a video to our drivers every week, say from the owner or the safety department head, or

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John Piper: or their specific dispatch, and say, Hey. look in that camera. So hey, John, thank you so much for driving for Xyz trucking. We really appreciate all you do for us.

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John Piper: and look forward to seeing you when you get back to the office. You know we’re gonna have a a a barbecue soon here, you know, in September, or whatever that might be, you can’t ever measure that that message.

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John Piper: maybe, save that driver from leaving and go on to, you know, right behind another truck that says, Call 1 800 and join us, because drivers can go other places. So there’s a lot of savings. There’s that you can always measure. And there’s our savings, too, when it comes to fuel when it comes to maintenance. Predictive AI and maintenance is becoming a big thing as well. Yeah. Driver sets you think about Csa, I could have a positive impact on that. It’s hard to measure that with dollars and cents.

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Steve Kessler: but certainly that can help with your driver recruitment. It can help with your insurance. It can help with the you know. shippers. we want to do business with you. You know, there’s a lot of impact there. It’s a little hard to put dollars on it, but certainly there’s

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John Piper: return on investment there in a positive way.

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John Piper: let that sales team at at the trucking company share that message. That’s a positive message that you’re investing in your business. Share that message with that shipper community.

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John Piper: because I think a lot of times that shipper looks at trucking companies as a commodity, and they shouldn’t, I know, not also do that. So don’t quote me on this. But when you can have that shipper relationship with the truck and company, and you’re working together for safety and efficiency. that’s a value. Add, and that shipper may not ever say you know what we were going to give that lane of business to another

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John Piper: carrier.

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John Piper: But you guys did all this great stuff with technology. We’re gonna keep you. They they might not ever tell you that. But I promise you it makes a difference.

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Steve Kessler: Very good.

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Steve Kessler: John. We are just to right at an hour into our program, and we always promise people we’ll try to keep it short, and I’m sure they’re quite a lot more questions. But if you wanted to kind of summarize that real quickly, and then we’ll let everybody get back to their busy lives.

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John Piper: Yeah, yeah, this has been great, Steve Mark. Thanks for having me appreciate the opportunity. you know, this is something that’s been my mantra even before I got it. In trucking, you know, be open to change. Try new ideas, new ways of thinking is so important. And just say, you know, what if

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John Piper: maybe it becomes that pilot test that we talked about earlier. This, this, this, this it sounds good.

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John Piper: or it sounds like it won’t work, you know. Let’s just try it. Be open to change, communicate early and often

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John Piper: have patience. I’ve I’ve worked on projects over the last really 3 decades that everybody gets excited about wants to deploy within 90 days, and I guess what something happens. Something changes

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John Piper: pandemic. Yet, whatever it might be.

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John Piper: have some patience, you know. Have some patience, is is key get drivers buy in early and often. I know. 7, 8, 9 years ago.

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John Piper: for example, the camera technology.

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John Piper: it made total sense from a risk perspective insurance

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John Piper: ownership perspective. I guess. What? When ownership started talking to drivers in the break room

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John Piper: or picked up the phone and call and said, hey? We’re thinking about putting in these cameras and keep mind. This is 8. 9 years ago, the driver said.

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John Piper: Hey, I’m gonna quit.

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John Piper: That’s not for me. So timing is is everything. Executive sponsorship and technology change is in inevitable things can and will change no doubt about it.

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John Piper: and again appreciate the opportunity. Steve, mark everybody there at Infinit-I.

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John Piper: and I look forward to doing some more collaborations with you and your team and your your customers in the future.

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Steve Kessler: Absolutely, John. Thank you very much. It was some kind of eye opening information here for me today, and I do appreciate your comments.

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Steve Kessler: so thank you very much same to you, Mark, as always. and our guests out there. If you have some interest in knowing what we do here at Infinit-I Workforce Solutions feel free to reach out to us, and we will do our best to tell you what we do here, and how we might be able to help you implement some of this technology that we’ve been talking about this morning.

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Mark Rhea: So I I would just say, Don’t try to figure it all out yourself.

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Mark Rhea: I know it’s a lot of confusion, and I would highly recommend getting a hold of somebody like Mr. Popper to say, Okay, here, set me straight on some of all this technology. And and I think you’ll get an answer from someone who understands our industry and understands the reality of of of getting it into the cab of truck.

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Steve Kessler: I’m happy to answer questions. Post call You can text me or call me at that number 21455680590r my email.

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Steve Kessler: J. Piper at add on Systemscom more than happy to help. And you’ll be safe out there. Thank you so much. Great thanks for all of you joining us today and look forward to and the next webinar. So keep an eye on your inbox and look for our invitation. So once again appreciate everybody being here. Thank you so much, and we’ll see you next time.

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Steve Kessler: Thank you.