2025 Industry Events Recap: Insights, Trends and Takeaways From the Road

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After a whirlwind season of industry events — from the Chauffeur Driven/NLA Show in Dallas, GBTA, IATR, CBA and more...Ken Lucci and James Blain circle the wagons and unpack the biggest trends shaping 2025 and beyond.

In this Ground Transportation Podcast episode, they share key insights from research, analyst reports, and conversations with owners and operators across the country:

• The data behind a strong rebound in corporate travel, luxury hotels, and private aviation
• The mounting pressure of insurance costs and what operators can do to prepare
• How inflation and tariffs are reshaping vehicle acquisition strategies
• And, most importantly, a growing movement toward industry-wide collaboration

Ken and James reveal why it’s time for operators, vendors, and associations across all sectors — limo, motorcoach, shuttle, and taxi — to unite around shared challenges and create a single, powerful voice for passenger transportation.

Whether you attended the events or are catching up from the road, this recap delivers the conversations, context, and calls to action driving the industry forward.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Welcome
01:16 CD/NLA Dallas Recap
12:15 Tariff Trouble
18:44 WWII story
21:12 Harder to make a profit
25:35 Weathering economic uncertainty
28:32 State of the Industry
33:25 Safety mindset
35:28 Centralized dashboard
39:50 Collaborative solution
01:03:23 Closing Remarks

At Driving Transactions, Ken Lucci and his team offer financial analysis, KPI reviews,  for specific purposes like improving profitability, enhancing the value of the enterprise business planning and buying and selling companies. So if you have any of those needs, please give us a call or check us out at www.drivingtransactions.com.

Pax Training is your  all in one solution designed to elevate your team's skills, boost passenger satisfaction, and keep your business ahead of the curve. Learn more at www.paxtraining.com/gtp

Connect with Kenneth Lucci, Principle Analyst at Driving Transactions:
https://www.drivingtransactions.com/

Connect with James Blain, President at PAX Training:
https://paxtraining.com/

Episode Transcript

James Blain (00:26):
Hello everybody and welcome to the Ground Train
Station podcast.
I am one of your co-hosts, JamesBlaine, uh, also known as the
Road Warrior.
I have my fellow road warrior.
We have been out traveling,doing it.
I'm lucky enough to have Ken asmy co-host.
How you doing, buddy?

Ken Lucci (00:40):
I am doing great.
I'm so happy to see you.
The last few, uh, episoderecordings, I've been all by
myself, and I, I've, I've had atough time carrying the
audience, I think.

James Blain (00:50):
Oh, oh.
If only we believed you.
No, it's, it's been, it's beeninteresting.
We've both been traveling.
So tell now, now I, I live onthe road.
I do tons.
But Ken, this, this for you.
I, I heard all kinds of greatthings about you giving all
kinds of information and facts,and people were blown away by

(01:10):
what you presented.
So put us out of our misery.
Where did you present?
Where were you at?
Where did you spend the pastweek?

Ken Lucci (01:16):
So, flew down to the chauffeur driven, uh, national
Limousine Association in Dallas.
And two weeks before the show,two weeks before the co I was
prepared to do the state of theindustry's, intro speech, which,
which, listen, they've beenmagnanimous with me.
Usually when you sponsor thestate of the industry, you have
five minutes to say hi.

(01:38):
Hello, enjoy the session.
So, I, I, I, over the years, Imean, Chris has been
unbelievably magnanimous.
He's allowed me to do 15 minutesof data.
So we shared.
We shared some, some qualitydata on the size of the
industry.
All of the feeder industries,meaning corporate travel,
airport passenger growth,corporate travel group, and

(02:01):
meeting.
The, the bottom line is that allof these industries are still
up.
Okay.
Um, we shared up to the, up tothe minute on airport,
passenger, for example, they had4 billion,$4 billion in earnings
this year above last year.

James Blain (02:20):
Oh, really?
We're up.

Ken Lucci (02:21):
Absolutely.
And they're up now.
July.
The airport passengers in Julywas only 0.5.
Percent above last year, but itwas five, 5% above the last two
years combined, right?
The average.
So the bottom line of the stateof the industry intro was that
the feeder industries are doingvery well.

(02:43):
Every single one, um, hotel,luxury hotel growth growing by
11%, compounded annual growthrate.
Investors are investing in fivestar hotels.
The luxury cruise space, the top10 most expensive cruises in the
world okay, are growing about 9%compounded annual growth rate.

(03:06):
Private jets growing at 5% anannual growth rate.
So it really, all of the feederindustries that do business with
us are doing great group andmeeting in the United States is
up about 5% compounded annualgrowth rate, but global group
and meeting.
is gonna grow by 9.8%,compounded annual growth rate
for the next five years.

(03:27):
So the next five years looksfantastic.

James Blain (03:29):
Okay.

Ken Lucci (03:30):
one piece of data we gave out, which was interesting
is in the meeting and eventspace, they did a poll, a survey
that 67% of the US companiesthat do global meetings would
like to be dealing with a USDMC, or US Logistics Company to
manage their global events.

(03:50):
Okay?

James Blain (03:51):
Big opportunity for us.

Ken Lucci (03:53):
right.
So when you look at the, whenyou look at the industry itself,
every bit of the feederindustries is going extremely
well.
When you examine macroeconomictrends, the big picture of the
economy, 2026 w we sharedconsensus data from Goldman
Sachs, JP Morgan, and Bloomberg.

(04:13):
That the chance of recession isless than 35%.
Now, I told the crowd, don't,don't panic about that because
every, every economist setstheir baseline at 20%.
Right?
Even in the best, in the, eventhe best economies of the world.
But it's almost a day-to-daything where you, we are
watching, we are watching thedata on the economy from every

(04:35):
possible database that'savailable.
I shared with the crowd that we,we have 12, people in the
economy that we pay unbelievableattention to in addition to all
of the travel and transportationindustries and hospitality.
And one of them is Jamie Diamondfrom JP Morgan, who flat out

(04:56):
said, there's a chance of arecession in 2026.
We don't think it's a foregoneconclusion, but we're preparing
our bank.
So the message I had for thestate of the industry was every
business owner should take thatsentiment.
Every business owner should,he's preparing his bank to
withstand any downturn.

(05:16):
So don't just focus on thepositives of what happens over
the next five years to all ourfeeder industries, but prepare
yourself.
So we gave a list out of, ofthings that we recommend, and it
went over extremely well.
I also had the two weeks beforethe show, I get a call from our
friend Mike Blackburn from, uh,limo Anywhere, you know,

James Blain (05:39):
oh, oh, did you?
Yeah.
Let's go, Mike.

Ken Lucci (05:41):
And,

James Blain (05:41):
go.
Mike.

Ken Lucci (05:42):
and, he, hooked.
He, he hit me with a little bitof a curve ball.
So, uh, Josh Anderson, who worksfor Limo anywhere in marketing,
was putting on the limo Anywhereacademy.
and Mike said, listen, we wantyou to do a session.
I said, no problem.
And.
they hit me early.
I mean, it took me a good twomonths to prepare my remarks for

(06:05):
the state of the industry and Ilive with that data.
But the Limo Anywhere team, itwas extremely impressive.
They had 25 Limo anywhere,people in the academy, and they
set up a room for one-on-onetraining with, with the
operators.
I've never seen a softwarecompany put so many resources

(06:26):
into a presentation and I guessthey liked what I had to say.
I mean, it was the first time Imet the President, Sean Arena.

James Blain (06:32):
Oh, you'd never met Sean before?

Ken Lucci (06:34):
no, I've known who he was.
We passed in the hallway, butit's really the first time we
spend time together.
So that was my opener to theweekend was spending Saturday.
And I will share with you thatfrom a tech perspective, they've
got a lot of great things comingout.
Okay.
I think that the softwareplatforms are waking up a little
bit.
I think that, you know, myopinion on the consolidation on

(06:59):
the software companies isevolving in that I believe that
the company that owns both LimoAnywhere and Santa Cruz and
Livery Coach, you know, Ibelieve that they're putting
money into this industry and I,I will, I will evidence it by
what it must have cost them tohave limo anywhere do that

(07:20):
entire academy.
and you know, one thing I cameacross from this session, and I
think you'll agree with this,that in any course, in any
software beyond the corefeatures Reservation and
dispatch something like 50 to70% of the features barely get
used.
It's not just we, we hear thesame thing with QuickBooks.

James Blain (07:43):
But, but that's, but that's a general business
problem, right?
Because I get people all thetime that they're like, you
know, I just found out todaythat I can create my own
courses, or I just found outtoday that you have dispatcher
training or CSR training or youtrain buses.
Like I, I feel like everycompany has that 50% of what
they do that their targetaudience doesn't know they do.

Ken Lucci (08:06):
I agree with that a hundred percent.
And, and, and specifically onsoftware or any, or any learning
platform, it's People, there's atendency for operators to ask
for all these different featuresand when they ask me to do this
session, I kind of did a deep

James Blain (08:23):
What, what session did they have you do?
Because I know I had talked toMike beforehand and we were, he
was like, so what do you think,uh, I should have Ken do, and I
threw a couple things at him.
So what did you end uppresenting on?

Ken Lucci (09:12):
So the first session I did was on the feature sets
inside Limo, anywhere that wehave seen our client operators
excel at using.
Okay.

James Blain (09:25):
Oh, okay.
'cause I was pushing him forprofitability when he was saying
that he wanted to use you.
I thought a profitabilitysession would be

Ken Lucci (09:31):
Well, believe it or not, we sold the virtues of lead
quote close

James Blain (09:36):
Ah,

Ken Lucci (09:36):
a sales management system.
we sold the benefits of, usingwhat they call passenger survey,
which means to me is a totalquality management tool.
Okay.
and so I, spent a lot of time onthe first session of those two
things, and then I was amazedthey had me close out the day
and I did the last session onbeing proactive from a

(10:01):
standpoint of.
Of sales, marketing andmessaging.
I gave examples of why they needto be diversified, both in the
corporate space and in theprivate space.
I got some good reviews out ofit.
I think we're gonna do somewebinars, on it as well.
But the next day I went to theNLA board meeting, and that's

(10:22):
where I started.
I started recording kind of myown mental notes of the
sentiment of the, of what'sgoing on in the space.
The first thing I, noticed wasthey got a report from the
manufacturers and MCI, forexample, was talking about the
inability for them to, or the,the struggle they're having with

(10:44):
setting prices on their vehiclesbecause of the tariffs because
of the changing.
The build cost of all theseparts.
So, so from a real lifeperspective throughout the show,
one of the themes I heard wasall of the tariffs and trade
uncertainty is causing havocwhen building these vehicles

(11:08):
like Jay Glick, from first classCustoms.
by the way, he brought a builtto the show that was bought by a
private, uh, billionaire thatI've never seen the fit and
finish on the inside of asprinter like this one.
It was absolutely gorgeous.
It was a, yeah, it was, it wasmore set up like a jet sprinter,
but it was for a private clientand the, the fit and finish it

(11:31):
was over two fi 2, 2 30, some230,000 but, but it was a
private build.
That's why it, it looked likethe inside of a jet plane.
Anyway, so Jay and I weretalking and I said, how are the
tariffs?
You know, you dealing with thetariffs.
He said, Ken, the chassis are ofMercedes are made on the ground.
So the chassis are not theproblem.

(11:52):
But all of the other parts I useare the problem.
He had rims coming in from amanufacturer that built them in
China, and the manufacturer inChina shipped all of their.
Dyes or whatever it's called,for manufacturing over to
another country with morefavorable tariffs.

(12:15):
And guess what?
All of their models and dyes gotlost.
So that was Chi look.
That was China's way of saying,Hey, screw you when, right.
So what did he have to do?
He, Jay himself, designed a setof rims that he's gonna have
sourced in a country that's notgonna cause him tariff problems.

(12:36):
So I heard that repeatedly.
Um,

James Blain (12:38):
Did they talk about the compounding?
Because one of the things that Iknow and, and I spent a lot of
time on the motor coach side ofthe industry, one of the things
I know that was a concern wasthe compounding it used to not
be a huge deal.
If something came out fromanother country, comes into our
country, goes to anothercountry, goes right, these,
pieces would move around a tonbetween countries.

(12:59):
And the problem now, and, and Idon't know where this landed,
but there was a time where theconversation around that in the
motor coach industry was, it'sgonna hit four or five different
locations and it's going tocompound and it's gonna get
worse.
And a lot of people don'trealize your motor coach
companies, they're not makingthem here in the us MCI is a

(13:20):
Canadian, right?
You've got your Prevo, which isCanadian, you've got Van Hool,
which is coming from theEuropean side.
You've got Tempsa, which iscoming from the European side.

Ken Lucci (13:28):
Temps is Turkey.
Volvo is up in Canada.
Yep.

James Blain (13:31):
yeah.
And, and so you've got, you'vegot all of these different
countries, no one's making themhere in the US and at one point
when they were talking about theautomakers, it was like, great,
we'll be exempt.
And then it was like, oh, wellwe didn't, we didn't think about
buses.
We didn't exempt you guys.
So I, I see that becoming moreof an issue.
I mean, to the point now where Ihear people talking about you
have pre tariff vehicles versusregular vehicles, because if

(13:55):
they have a pre tariff vehicle,they can sell you.
It basically gets grandfatheredthrough, is my understanding.
So that's gonna be a hugeproblem on the

Ken Lucci (14:02):
it, it, it is, it's almost unpredictable.
And, and you know, that's,that's one of the messages that
when we were talking state ofthe industry, it was like, you
need to be prepared.
Prepare your balance sheet,meaning keep your debt low.
You know, hoard cash.
This is a need year.
If I need to replace a person,replace them.

(14:25):
If I need to replace a, vehicle,replace it.
But I don't think, I don't see aton of speculative buying,
meaning I, I just don't see it.
I think that the smarteroperators, even the ones that
are doing well, and that's oneof the things we presented, was
about 35% of the operators thatresponded.
To, and, and we announced thatwe have a, a, a partnership with

(14:47):
chauffeur driven on, onquarterly surveys now, but I
took 300.
The, the, the survey resultswere about 300 that answered
these questions, about 35 per,and then I, I took 180 of, of
the companies that we deal withfrom a finance perspective,
about 35 companies are abovewhere they were last year, and
the average is about 12% above.

(15:09):
But a lot of that is shiftingfrom one operator to a better
class of operator.
My concern to me was the amountof people that were static and
the amount of people that aredown.
I think that what I, I see ispeople who are reacting to the
market and just waiting for thephone to ring their businesses

(15:30):
are down.
So the sentiment, the firstsentiment was the worry about
equipment costs rising.
The second sentiment was, wasthe discussion about fleet
insurance.
And that came up.
When the state of the industrysession, came onto the main
session where Chris Weiss fromchauffeur Driven, asked
questions, he had John Ferrarifrom TBL Group Up.

(15:55):
He's in a captive.
He had, Tammy from Commonwealth,and I'm not sure that whether
they're in a captive.
And then they had Tim Rose fromHoffman Family accompanies
they're in a captive, but theyaddressed, they addressed the
insurance issue extremely well.
They all said basically the, thesame thing where you need to

(16:16):
develop a culture of safety andyou need to build a case that
you are low risk.
And it dovetailed so much withwhat Tim Delaney from Lancer
Insurance said on our recentpodcast that you cannot approach
the insurance market the way youused to.

(16:37):
Where you've had the same brokerfor years and he's a good old
boy.
He is gonna take care of youbecause he's not controlling he
or she, they're not controllingthe market.
You've gotta make the case thatyou're lower risk and you've
gotta make safety.
The cultural, uh, the, acultural foundation piece of
your company.
So they talked a lot abouttelematics, they talked about,

(16:58):
and, and Tim Rose hit the nailon the head.
You have to use the telematicsdata on a daily basis to improve
your organization.
So it's interesting to me,there, there was a lot of talk
about insurance.
There was talk about solutions Ibelieve that that report that
they came out with from the NLAtalked about best practices.

(17:18):
I'm just not positive theoperators are getting it.
I, I'm not positive James, thatthey're not thinking, well,
that's somebody else's problem.
My loss runs are okay.

James Blain (17:29):
Well, but I so genuinely, and, and I have been
traveling a lot more this yearthan I normally have, and I can
tell you one of the things isthat this is not what makes an
operator money.
And I say it all the time,right?
Training's not sexy.
Nobody woke up one day.
It's like, I'm so excited, I'mgonna go train my

Ken Lucci (17:48):
You know, the funny thing is, I, I, I get, I
understand what you're saying,the sentiment is there, or their
thought process is, it doesn'tmake the money, but the reality
is what you sell in perfectingthe service experience
eventually does make them money.
Okay.
The sa

James Blain (18:06):
But that's proactive thinking.
That's, that's not reactionarythinking.
And whether we like it or not.
We're a reactionary

Ken Lucci (18:12):
but you know what?
All small businesses, all small

James Blain (18:15):
They

Ken Lucci (18:16):
tend to be reaction because, you know, my dad, I
used to remember, he used to gointo the store the first thing
in the morning.
And he used to be in a greatmood, and by four o'clock in the
afternoon, he was a miserablebastard because all kinds of
shit took place.
Right?
But, but, but we are, we arereactive because we are in there
block and tackling, solvingproblems.
But, but the safety aspect, I, Ifirmly believe that safety is

(18:40):
like what you sell, safety sell,okay.
Training cells, quality service,excellent cells.
But I'm not sure why theseoperators aren't getting it from
a safety perspective.
Guy comes up to me at the show,he said, well, you know, I'm a
four car operator.
I'm with Progressive Insurance.
I'm only two years old.

(19:01):
I'm like, you're in for a rudeawakening.
What's telematics you are in fora rude awakening because, you
know, he's one bad accident is,is gonna kill his renewal.
But also he's not building acase that he is a he, he is, he
is a low risk candidate forinsurance.

(19:23):
It's, it's

James Blain (19:23):
But it, but it goes back to something that I've
always loved and there's asaying out there that a lack of
accidents does not equal safety.
All right.
you can go.
And, and it's so funny becausewe see this happen all the time.
I see companies that say, youknow, we had this big robust
safety program.
We hit everything.
But, you know, we never had anyaccidents.
We never had any incidents.
We were clearly spending toomuch money on it.

(19:45):
Right?
And what do they do?
They scale it back.
it made me think there's a storyin World War ii and they've got
these bombers, and these bombersare coming back riddled with
bullets, all right?
They're coded in bullets andthey sit down with an engineer
and they said, Hey.
We're, we're losing a bunch ofbombers.
We need to beef them up.
And the first thing the guy saysis, look at where all the bullet

(20:07):
holes are.
And that's where we armor played'em.
And they're, they've got thisidea, they're getting ready to
move forward.
They've got it figured out.
And one of the guys goes, whoa,whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Hit the brakes.
Hit the brakes.
And they said, well, well, whatare you talking about?
We saw the planes that cameback.
We see where the bullet holesare.
We're gonna put the armorplating there.
And he goes, put the armorplating where there are no
bullets.

(20:28):
And they looked at him like hewas nuts.
He said, the planes that didn'tcome back clearly got shot
there.
That's the place where if youget shot, the plane crashes.
Clearly, the planes, if all theholes are in this part of the
plane, that means that part ofthe plane can be Swiss cheese
and it will still fly.
And if you apply that to yourbusiness, oftentimes we look at

(20:51):
the parts that get beat up, theparts that can take the beating,
the parts that can deal with it.
But all it takes is onefatality, one massive accident,
one massive instant.
And that business is toast.
And you see them trying tobolster and armor the wrong part
of the business.
And if you look at that samething, if you're looking at the

(22:17):
businesses that weather thestorm and you're using that to
decide where to beef up, youshould be looking at the guys
that didn't make it and whatbasically took their business
out.
And I can tell you nine timesoutta 10, it's, you know, hey,
they didn't have a robust safetyprogram.
They didn't have an incidentresponse.
When something happened, theylet things go.

(22:38):
They said, Hey, we haven't hadan accident in 10 years.
Clearly we're spending too muchon safety.
Let's take the money out of it.
And then what happens?
Six months, nine months, it'sgonna be a while, right?
'cause it's gonna take a whileto trend down.
12 months later, the whole thingcrashes and burns.
And I see it happen all thetime, Ken.
It kills me.
It kills me.

Ken Lucci (22:57):
I think we've, I think we've passed into there's
a permanent shift in thisindustry that some people are
not acknowledging.
Number one, this industry is noteasy anymore to make a profit

James Blain (23:13):
it.
is getting harder

Ken Lucci (23:14):
Wait a minute, while managing it with your gut.
Okay.
Lot of entrepreneurs say, well,I've never looked at my
financials.
I've managed it by my gut.
Those days are over.
Okay.
They're over, and I, we areseeing it because the companies
that are doing better this year.
That are on our program.

(23:35):
They are granularly managingeverything.
Okay?
The second thing that I thinkthis, and so number one, the
industry, the profits of shrunk.
So you need to be more and moreastute financially.
The second thing that's happenedis, and they're not getting it,
is this is not a fad on theinsurance issue.

James Blain (23:55):
oh, what'd Tim say?
14 years, right?

Ken Lucci (23:58):
correct.
14 years of losses on thecommercial side of his industry.
Meaning for every a hundreddollars you take in, you lose a
buck and a half, or you, you,you lose 150 or a hundred,$101
and 50 cents.
That's not a good trend.
So these are permanent changes.

(24:19):
In other words, we're nevergonna go back to the five hour
minimums on sedans and SUVs andcharters because the market has
shifted away from Uber.
So when we deploy sedans andSUVs, we're gonna be maximum
efficient.
The profitability is shrinkingbecause the costs are going up.
In addition to that, theinsurance issue is, is is not

(24:44):
going to return back.
So if you are gonna besuccessful, you have to have as
a foundation or as a pillar ofyour company, fiscal and
financial management and safety,safety management and risk
management.

James Blain (25:04):
Yep.

Ken Lucci (25:04):
Okay.
So if you don't have those twopillars, you are not gonna
succeed long.
And it's scary to me, because Isee some operators that have
been around for a while.
They came up to me as like, canyou know, I think it's time to
get out.
And I said, what's changed?
I can't afford my insurance.
The deposit on my insurance, ormy insurance rates went up and

(25:26):
now they're 15 to 16% of mytotal income.
By the way, they should be sevento nine.
So, but, but you know what, whatgets me these problems are not
insurmountable, right?
I mean, at the end of the day,it's a mathematical equation and
it's, pulling the levers of yourbusiness, okay?
There's not one company outthere that cannot go up on their

(25:48):
pricing in some area.
I don't think you can go up alot on your sedans and SUVs.
Okay.
But I do think that from anelasticity perspective, you can
go up on your vans and yourminis and your motors in some
semblance.
Okay?
But here's what you can do onsedans and SUVs.
You can make a deal with thebest guys in your local market

(26:10):
and start working together.
So Ken has SUVs.
James has SUVs here toheretofore.
We've not worked together,right?
Because I don't like James.
Right.
Okay.
Well, you know, I'm jealous ofJames because James is an
operator.
You know his, he has shiniervehicle.
Okay.
Stop.

James Blain (26:27):
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (26:28):
Ken and James get together and have coffee and
say, look, I'm gonna make myschedule available to you from a
sedan and SUV perspective.
I'll have you be your back.
You have my back.
You know, let's maybe not haveour logos all over the sedans
and SUVs, right?
So that when I've, and, andlet's train our drivers that we
have this now, and maybe it'sfive guys, maybe it's five

(26:50):
operators locally.
And, and what you do is a risingtide lifts all boats.
Now you can make me moreefficient because you know that
I have, tomorrow afternoon, Ihave a guy coming out of the
airport empty.
That's what we have to be doingbecause the profits have gone
down.
Right.
They've gone down.
And, and I, I, I do think it'sa, it's that much collaboration

(27:14):
needs to improve, on the locallevel on the national level.

James Blain (27:20):
let me ask you something Ken,'cause we're at
kind of a nexus point, right?
So I go every and, and it'sfunny'cause you, you grew up in
the grocery industry.
Every time I go to the grocerystore with my wife and I try to
do it as little as possible, butevery time I end up at the
grocery store with my wife, itcosts me more.
I'm seeing the cost of groceriesgo up every day.
The cost of insurance is goingup every day.

(27:41):
All of these costs in ourpersonal lives Are, are going
up.
That's for all of your drivers,all your staff.
On the business side, we'reseeing cost go up, but what
we're seeing at the same time,Amazon just announced that due
to ai.
They're doing mass layoffs.
We're seeing that wages are notkeeping up.

(28:02):
We're seeing that all of thesekind of, you know, and I, and I
bring it up'cause you talkedabout earlier that, you know, we
have this 35% chance of arecession, but we've got all of
these kind of, what I wouldcall, at least to me, red flags.
if you're the operator and Ihave the advantage, I can ask my
financial friend over herewhenever I want.

(28:22):
But if you're the operatorlistening to this podcast,
you're like, man, I keep hearingall this stuff.
I keep hearing all that.
Like, from a financialperspective, what do you see?
What, is there a breaking point?
Does this keep going?
Do we have to increase prices tokeep up with it?
I mean, it almost feels likethere's a snowball coming down
the hill to a lot of people.

Ken Lucci (28:44):
you know, and, and, and, uh, I have very in depth
conversations with my buddyBobby, be Gamba, who, you know,
who used to own Concord.
We helped him sell his business.
We talk now about the stockmarket and, and there is some
people that think that therewe're in the middle of an AI
bubble and, okay, so, so toanswer your question, if you

(29:05):
accept the reality that at anygiven time there is a, there is
the potential for a Black Swanevent, or there is a potential
for at least some sort of adisruption, just like we saw on
the pandemic, the strongsurvived.
So at the end of the day, Ithink 25 and 26, don't forget,

(29:27):
26 is also a midyear electionyear.
So I, think it's prudent thatyou, tighten the sheet a little
bit, right?
And you, you hold your cash, yougo up in prices where you can,
you work with people who pay youon time so that you're not left
with a lot of cash out ifsomething happened, you know?

(29:49):
But the name of the game iswe're a transactional business.
and it's not enough to look atyour transactions at the end of
the year to see how you, did.
You have to manage the businesson a micro level every single
month?
am I, am I pessimistic?
You know, I'm very optimisticabout the larger equipment from

(30:10):
vans, minis, and motors, and ourability to stay profitable in
those sectors.
I think we deliver a betterservice experience than any of
the competitors out there.
I think that in certain markets,like the corporate, I mean the,
uh, airport quote, shuttlemarket, you know, I think that's
a pricing game.
But I think we do, I think we doa hell of a job on all of the

(30:33):
others, and I see those areascontinuing to be very profitable
where I'm concerned.
Especially because of the recenttransactions that have taken
place and the coming ofautonomous vehicles.
I'm concerned about the sedanand SUV space.
You know, the other thing thatI, let me, let me back up.

(30:54):
I'm concerned that we can't evenkeep the market share that we
have.
We're$20.3 billion industry, ifyou include motor coaches, 6.6
billion of that is sedan andSUV.
Okay.
And, you know, we talked to, orBrett Bernal did a great job
with, the Suzanne Nang, the CEOof GBTA.

(31:18):
And I talked to her before andshe's like, Ken, you know.
we had to revise our 25 a littlebit so that we are not growing
at 10%.
We're growing at 6.6%.
Corporate travel is growing by6.6% over 24 in 2025.
In 2026, they've revised from 9%down to 6%.

(31:40):
She said, but we're still ontrack.
We are still on track to be atrillion industry.
So I said, Suzanne, you know,67% of the reason why corporate
travel uses chauffeur is Sedanand SUV.
Okay?
And she said, I didn't realizeit was that high.
I'm like, it is.
So my concern is not that we'regonna be attractive to corporate

(32:04):
travel, to do groups andmeetings, to do high touch board
meetings, to do, bring people infor training, et cetera, et
cetera, large equipment.
I think we're gonna be fine.
What scares the crap out of me?
Is our lack of ability to cometogether as an industry on the
sedan and SUV side.

(32:24):
Number one, at the basic level,every single on the local and
state level, we should besharing resources and we should
be helping each other out.
And we should be, I mean, rockbottom prices to each other.
That's number one.
Number two, the other theme ofthe show was technology.
Okay.

(32:45):
And Every single session I wentinto and I hopped in and out of
every one, our friend JoeyMills, was given a great talk on
overnight tours, which isincredible.
Every single session, the stateof the industry session was
about technology.
I mean, Tammy Rudder fromCommonwealth hit the nail on the
head.

(33:05):
We are constantly.
trying to keep the corporateclients while the age of the
passenger keeps going down andthe age of the booker keeps
going down.
And she said flat out, they allwanna use apps, they all want
dashboards.
Okay.
I think, I was pleased by what Iheard and saw with Limo

(33:28):
Anywhere, and I tried to say tomyself, you know, forget about
the fact that, you know, Iplayed a part in the session.
I gotta tell you, they've gotsome unbelievable feature sets
coming.
And the other thing I heard was,for the first time, the other
software provider that's ownedby Full Steam is going to be
sharing some of their shuttletools, because apparently they

(33:51):
have a better shuttle tool thanLimo Anywhere.
And Limo Anywhere has bettercorporate dashboards.
So I, I'm worried about thesedan, SUV space.
from our industry's perspective,because, you know, we just saw
that, that Lyft just purchasedTBR, which is a smaller boutique

(34:11):
network here in the UnitedStates, but they're massive in
the UK and Europe.
I mean, the highest touchmeetings that take place in
Switzerland in the finance andbanking space are done by TBR.
Well, that company was justpurchased by Lyft.
so at the end of the day, aswe're seeing the, uh, TNC come

(34:33):
into the premium space and we'reseeing continuous talk about
Uber just announced, by the way,they just announced that the
Lucid neuro.
Vehicles are gonna be launchedfirst in San Francisco and Okay.
And we'll talk about that.
We've got another podcast comingup.
So I'm, I'm massively concernedabout the sedan and SUV space.

(34:55):
Do I think we can, do we do, Ithink we still deliver the best
service experience.
Absolutely.
But at the end of the day, ifthe eventual client wants to do
their booking using technology,they're never gonna see that
service experience.

James Blain (35:10):
Well, but, but you've got some things at play
here.
You've got some big pieces atplay.
So, so my mind right now is onthe, the motor coach side
because it's funny in, in, onthe chauffeur side of the
business, my message to thatworld is safety has to come
first.

(35:31):
You have to follow theregulations and you have to go
above and beyond theregulations.
They are the bare minimum.
And you have to have safetyprograms and you have to
understand the second you get toa Sprinter, which is a
commercial motor vehicle, and Iswear I have people at them.
Well, it doesn't require CDLWell you better check your
state.
'cause in some states it does.

(35:51):
Right.
but but as soon as you get tothat level right, they, they
have to do it.
And then the problem therebecomes on the other side of
that, and I'm speaking aboutthis to one of the motor coach
associations.
The legacy motor coach sidedoesn't have the customer
service level.
So yeah.
So in our world, we lack thatsafety conscious, those safety

(36:14):
programs, the training, thementality there, and that world,
they lack, that chauffeur, thathigh level touch, those are

Ken Lucci (36:21):
but to your point, to your point, they, they've
always, the motor coachcompanies, the good ones have
always taken safety very, a muchmore serious.

James Blain (36:30):
I sit on the bus industry safety council, right?
I mean, there's no such thing asa limousine safety council,
right?
If there was, I'd be on it.
I'd be preaching

Ken Lucci (36:38):
Okay.

James Blain (36:39):
the mountaintops, right?
You know, we have a couplegroups that work on safety, but
not to that.
For them, it's baked into thementality, and then you get down
on the sedan and SUV side rightthere.
I don't see.
The, the legacy motor coach asyou as some of them call it, and

(36:59):
the chauffeur side or limo sideis a ti and that's typically how
they think of each other, right?
If you brought those twotogether and you got'em to
harmonize, they'd complete eachother.
You have the service, you havethe safety, you now have
complete and whole groups.
In my mind, the problem that Isee with the sedan and SUV is
that when I was at GBTA, I don'teven want to try and guess how

(37:20):
much money Uber spent, but Uberhad lounges every, I don't know,
50 feet.
There was an Uber lounge, youhad Lyft, you have, and the one
thing that we cannot do, and youknow.
The National Association ismaking a hard effort, but the
one thing that doesn't exist inour world is a centralized

(37:40):
national dashboard, unless theygo through a broker.
The thing that Uber is preachingis I got one dashboard for
Intel, for Apple, for all ofthese massive mega companies,
right?
Nvidia, whoever it is, itdoesn't matter where you send
them.
We have one dashboard to trackwhere they are, how much they
spent, all that.
Look, I went and signed up forUber's dashboard.

(38:03):
I wanted to see it, and it'sgood.
It's

Ken Lucci (38:05):
It's it.
No, listen, it's, it'sphenomenal And there's such a,
there is such a state of denialon some people's mindset on the
tech side, in the chare space.
Well, that's too expensive.
We can't do that.

(38:25):
but on the other side of things,that's exactly what the
corporate client wants.
The, the private client wantsthe convenience of ordering that
app.
Oh.
You know, and, and, and look.
Pricing.
Pricing.
I maintain that.
The TNCs have, without question,done a fantastic job.

(38:47):
Urban city to airport near urbancity.
Okay.
So JFK, LaGuardia, right?
JFK and LaGuardia to downtownand then Boston to Logan
Airport, to everybody who livesin the back bay in that area.

James Blain (39:02):
And they're integrating with the airlines
too, right?
So I, I got off a Southwestflight was, I think it was
Southwest.
Either way, I get off a flightand I'm, I'm in the app for
whatever,'cause I'm looking atmy next flight and it says, Hey,
I saw you just got to theairport, click here.
And by the way, if you don'tknow this is coming, you now
have hotels doing the samething.

(39:23):
I got into my hotel app to checkin when I got to the airport and
it said, thanks for checking in.
We see you're at the airport.
Do you wanna have a lift?
Click here.
Boom.
Right into the

Ken Lucci (39:33):
Yep.
Yep.
And, and, and I, I think thatwhile I am overly optimistic on
the large vehicle side, becausewe do deliver such a better
service experience than the busguys, and some of the bus guys
won't even deal, they won't evenhandle groups and meetings,
meaning logistics.

(39:53):
We will do all of that.
I, I'm really, I'm reallyoptimistic there, but where I'm
very concerned about theindustry is.
I mean, for how long are wegonna be talking about the fact
that we need a unified corporatedashboard that can connect
capacity in every city as wellas we need an app?

(40:15):
I mean, I heard someone say,well, it would cost$50 million
to develop an app.
I'm, I mean, I'm just gonna callh shit on

James Blain (40:22):
hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
So, so when you say$50 million,is that like We're gonna give, I
don't know, maybe like49000000.75 to somebody to go
buy a yacht and then we're gonnatake the 250,000 and we're gonna
build an

Ken Lucci (40:36):
you go.

James Blain (40:37):
like, I'm

Ken Lucci (40:38):
But, but

James Blain (40:40):
We have a software platform.
I live in that world.
Nice

Ken Lucci (40:42):
right, right.
I, and look, I had The owner ofone of the largest networks in
the country say to me, well, youknow, so and so said that it was
gonna cost them$50 million todevelop an app.
And that's why, you know, wedon't have an app.

James Blain (40:57):
So I will, I will build it.
Whoever said that I just wantright now on the podcast, if you
give me$49 million, I will buildthe app.
Now, don't ask me what Iactually spend building the app,
but give me the 49 million.
I'll

Ken Lucci (41:08):
So now, so, so now that we're, you know, we're into
this and you're, you know, we'retalking about the show, you
know, two of the largestnetworks in the world were not
at the show.
Okay.
They weren't anywhere to do withthe show and let's leave names
out of it.
But they think they, they eitherthink they're better than the
general public.
and I think that, or they justdidn't think that there was

James Blain (41:30):
no, no, no presence whatsoever.

Ken Lucci (41:33):
None.
None.
And, and, my thought process isthis, we're either gonna rise
together or we're gonna falltogether.
And look, I got no dog in thishunt.
I'll be able to sell, we'll beable to sell the businesses
regardless.
And, you know, we, we, thereisn't really much that goes on
in the space that we're notinvolved with, but.

(41:54):
It concerns me that some of theloudest voices in the industry
can't speak in harmony togetherand say, look, this is what we
need, and it's not just todevelop it for us, but this is
what we need across the board.

James Blain (42:09):
Well, but let's, let's call a spade a spade for a
second, because one of thethings that is unique about our
world versus the world of TNCsis that it is no secret that if
I am a larger company withmultiple different locations, my
best move is to have my owndashboard, my own everything,
and not tie into someone else's.

(42:30):
So I think one of the thingsthat we've got going on, and,
and this has been true, youknow, I, I won't say who it was.
Well, when I got into thisindustry 10 years ago now, uh,
about two or three years in, wewent to one of the largest
operators in the industry and wetalked to them and their
response was, you know, why do Iwanna do something with you?
Why do I wanna, you know, backyou?

(42:51):
Why do I want to have stuff withyou and help you get your name
out there and do all that andbring everybody else up?
When it behooves me more to makesure that I am better than
everyone else, and it's thatmentality that we've been
fighting since long before I gothere 10 years ago, probably long
before you got here.

(43:11):
That I think is stunting growth.

Ken Lucci (43:13):
I agree a hundred percent.
Just think about what I saidabout the collaboration that
needs to take effect on thelocal level, right?
So I deal with operators all thetime that say, I have 20, I have
10 SUVs, 20 SUVs, et cetera, andI can't go up on my pricing.
And then we look at the KPIs andwe show them in a heat map look.

(43:34):
This is where you literally haveno usage during the day and on
these days.
So I, I mean, honestly, if youhad two more rides a day, your
margins would go up.
Because think about it, youalready put the vehicle on the
road, okay?
And you're probably paying thatguy for an eight hour shift.
You might be putting him downtwo hours, but regardless if you

(43:58):
became more efficient, and thatefficiency at the local level
only comes through collaborationat, of with each operator or
selective operators.
All right?
If the guy's a dirt bag, don'tdeal with'em.
Okay?
But I maintain to you that thesame thing has gotta happen on
the large side of the industry,okay?
And it doesn't.
And they're because, because forwhatever reasons they can't get

(44:21):
over.
You know, the confidentiality,the proprietary, they can't work
together.
And unfortunately I think thatthat, that when you, you said
it, when you go to the GBTA andyou see Uber just courting the
businesses, at some point thebusinesses are gonna say, you
know what?
I don't agree with it.

(44:41):
They're gonna say, you knowwhat?
It's the same SUVI don't give ashit if they don't vet their
drivers or it's good enough.
That scares me.
That scares me.
It's lowering expectations.

James Blain (44:51):
But it's, but the important thing to remember, all
right, and, and I am luckyenough that I had a father who
worked for Sprint, which is nowpart of T-Mobile that worked
with their procurementdepartment.
And if I'm the guy inprocurement, I don't want to
have to manage 50 differentcompanies in 50 different
places.

(45:11):
And even if someone,

Ken Lucci (45:13):
and 50 different processes for billing and 50
different and 50 different waysof ordering things.
I agree with you a

James Blain (45:20):
Thi this.
This is why the broker modelworks, okay?
The reason we have large brokersthat don't own metal, and we
have it in the motor coach side,the limo side, it doesn't matter
what industry or NEMT that isbecause for the procurement guy,
they'd rather have another layerbelow them that deals down and
does all that, and they have onedashboard won everything to go

(45:41):
through.
I would rather take someone thatdoes a half decent job and I
only manage one to the guy thatknocks it outta the park and
does the other.
And the thing that you've gottabe aware of there is a lot of
this is under understanding whatyou are selling

Ken Lucci (45:56):
And understanding what your customer needs and

James Blain (45:59):
yes, because there's a guy who your goal is
to sell to that broker.
Or maybe it's a time in thebusiness where it makes sense to
sell to that broker, but youmight decide, Hey, I'm a higher
caliber company to where that'snot my target.
I'm targeting someone that wantsa more high touch, a more
exclusive, just because theprocurement department of a

(46:20):
large company wants onedashboard, one everything,
they'll take low quality doesn'tmean you're not gonna find
someone that is the largestlocal company in your town that
cares way more about thequality.
I will share with you in myworld of PAX training.
I have customers that aredefense contractors.
I have customers that aremassive corporations that are

(46:43):
huge that you would never think,and the reason they've come to
us is they've said, Hey, we havefive in-house drivers, or we
have 10 in-house drivers.
They drive our CEO, they driveour mega, you know, contract.
These are, we have like a tinyamount of guys when we
absolutely can't afford to sendsomething out of house and we
want them to be perfect, right?

(47:04):
And so that exists, and thereason that exists is because
for that in-house clientele,they had to have it perfect.
I've got customers that havetold me, Hey, I need a higher
level of training because I dealwith the king and queen in my
country, or I deal with this.
And so I think a lot of this iskind of understanding where you

(47:25):
sit in the market, but to acertain extent, you've also
gotta understand.
We as an industry, whether it'smotor coach, whether it's NEMT
School bus limo, I don't carewhat you're in, you have to
decide where you sit in themarket and as an industry, what
you're gonna accept.
I've said for years, if you lookat the California raisins, I, my

(47:48):
favorite thing to do is askpeople, what were the California
raisins?
What brand?
And everybody, all Sun madethis, that, the other, and the
answer is none.
It was the California RaisinGrowers Association that banded
together to raise it all.
Just like got milk, got milk,wasn't, you know, any specific
brand that was a Dairy Growersof

Ken Lucci (48:08):
It was the dairy association

James Blain (48:10):
Now, now here's what kills me, is even between
our industries.
I travel a ton.
I went to Washington multipletimes with different
associations.
There was no collaborationbetween the different
associations on the asks of therepresentatives.
I went in with one group oneday.
I went in with one group anotherday.

(48:31):
They have different lobbyists,but they're asking for the same
crap.
We have the same insuranceproblems.
We have the same insuranceissues, but we're not crossing
those borders and having fourdifferent associations in
transportation go to thoserepresentatives and ask for the
exact same thing and say, Hey,exact, exactly.

(48:53):
Together.

Ken Lucci (48:54):
Together.
Yeah.
And, and it gets back to the, itgets back to the, to the thought
processes, uh, process ofcollaboration and Okay.
Because, you know, at the end ofthe day, I think the NLA does a
great job on with, um, theirlobbyist firm and with their PR
firm.

James Blain (49:10):
believe it's cornerstone, isn't it?

Ken Lucci (49:12):
right.
Cornerstone.
Correct.
But to your point, I mean, doyou think we could do a better
job if collaboratively all ofthe private transportation
associations were singing fromthe same ALS had the same PR
people?
The same, but it's, it'sdifficult.
I, I, I can tell you that theNLA is doing a hell of a job
compared to years ago when I wasan operator.

(49:35):
I honestly believe that, I mean,I sat in on the

James Blain (49:37):
I, I don't think it's about anybody doing a bad
job.
Right.
I, I, I think, I thinkeverybody's doing an incredible
job.

Ken Lucci (49:44):
It's light years ahead of where it was us.

James Blain (49:46):
Right.
And I, and I wanna be abundantlyclear, right?
I, dude, I, I can give youalphabet soup.
Uh, I'm on the BIS committee.
I'm part of driving force for aBA, I'm on U-M-A-T-T-A, right?
I'm the co-chair of the Safetyand Loss Committee for TT a I
try to stay very involved withNLA.
This is not a doing a bad jobissue.

(50:06):
This is a fact that when theseindustries all started, the
lanes were really far apart.
And we were all running the samegeneral direction, but you
couldn't look at the lane nextto you and see them.
We are now seeing that in thismoment, at least for me, because
I'm in all these differentassociations because we work

(50:26):
with all of pastor groundtransportation, I see it as one
big highway.
We're basically on a multi-lanehighway.
You

Ken Lucci (50:33):
With no more Jersey barriers to

James Blain (50:35):
No, no.
Right.
The we've, we've now merged ontothe same highway going the same
direction.
So the motor coach guys are intheir lane.
The limo guys are in their lanen EMTs in their lane school
buses, in their lane, taxis intheir lane.
But we haven't realized thatwe've all merged onto the same
highway and what's happened, andthe reason for me, it's so

(50:56):
obvious, is I'm watching guysswitch between lanes and I'm
watching guys have vehicles inmultiple lanes.
It's very common now to see achauffeur services company that
runs buses.
I'm now seeing bus companiesthat are starting to run black
car.

Ken Lucci (51:12):
and, and they're running school buses.
But you hit upon something, youhit upon something that, you
know, I, I think is, is, ispretty important, which is we
all have one massive commonproblem.
And that's commercial insurance.

James Blain (51:27):
Oh, at every show, every industry.
It's all of us.

Ken Lucci (51:31):
what you're saying then is why aren't these
associations collectively?
Why isn't there an insurance.
Group a committee a task forcewith people from the UMA with
people from a MA with peoplefrom ta ta and people of NLA.
I mean, you heard it here first,

James Blain (51:50):
Yeah.
And, and by the way, I, I willbe that guy.
Right.
And I've, I've made that offerand, and I've tried to, to
promote collaboration betweenthe associations.
'cause I'm at everything and,and it's probably no secret.

Ken Lucci (52:02):
This is the fundamental issue that will
bring them all together.
Okay?
Now here's the other piece ofthis puzzle.
If they come together for theinsurance issue, they can also
come together with a position onautonomous safety as well.
Because the only people that aretalking about autonomous safety
at the moment are the autonomousindustry, right?
We don't want to, okay, but, butto your point, I, I think that,

(52:26):
I think that there is a t thereis a tremendous case to be made
that all of these associationsshould be collaborating and
funding money together.
To change the insurance policyand to let, the insurance
commissioners in every state.
Now imagine what we're saying.
We start, what about, by theway, we started this by talking
about the CD and LNLA show,

James Blain (52:47):
Well, and, and by the way, no secret, which I
wasn't even there because I, I

Ken Lucci (52:51):
your, well, your wife was there and I actually had a
better time with your wife thatI'm, I ever do with you.
I mean, we weren't right.
We, we weren't, we weren't nextto each other.
But every time I talked to her,she was very positive.
She was always smiling and andshe's the opposite Anyway, so
what what we're saying is, youknow, you, because you travel in

(53:14):
all these other associationcircles and you see the
commonality that insurance,insurance, insurance is the
problem.
I think what we're advocatinghere is instead of the NLA
sending a letter or report tothe state's insurance.
That that letter would have thelogos and signatures of the
presidents, of all of theassociations, that would be

(53:38):
massive, massive collaboration.

James Blain (53:41):
it's, doable.
Right?

Ken Lucci (53:42):
Are you pipe dreaming?
Are

James Blain (53:43):
oh, no, no, no, no.
So, so Matt Doss, who we will bebringing back on, right?
And I will be seeing soon at anupcoming show, Matt Doss brought
in at IATR.
He had a panel presenting to theregulators.
That was right.
We had Vic, Rick Versace, whichwas representing, you know, the
NLA and the FLA.

(54:04):
You know, we had the head ofBannie, we had the head of TTA.
We had, you know, IRA Gold, wehad all these different people
from all of passenger groundtransportation all come in, all
present at once.
And I can tell you and this issomething that has been gnawing
away at me since the legislativefly in for, um, TTA and for N

(54:26):
LA's stay on the hill, they wereback to back So I literally,
I've literally, we were therefor NLA, we went and we saw all
the representatives.
Literally the very next day Imissed the, they had one day
that overlapped.
The very next day after beingthere with representatives, I
was now going with TT A to Crepresentatives.
And for NLA we were asking foran insurance task force.

(54:48):
And we got, ironically enough,right?
Cherise Davis, her head ofoffice, had been with her for a
long day.
Cherise Davis is from Kansas.
She's a representative from um,Kansas, I believe.

Ken Lucci (54:59):
she's a, she's a, from the House of
Representatives?

James Blain (55:01):
I believe she's House of Representatives,
democratic Party, state ofKansas.
Don't quote me on that, I'm justgoing off top of my head.
Um, but her, her head of office,of her office had been there for
a long time.
I wanna say, don't quote me onthis one.
I believe he was a Jayhawk likeI am.
And he, he told me, he said,look, you're gonna talk to a lot
of kids.

(55:22):
This is when, Vance was tryingto get something done right.
And they were all in session.
He goes, I, I'm gonna give it toyou straight.
You're asking me for a taskforce.
Okay, what does that look like?
How does it work?
What does it do?
You want an insurance taskforce?
Right?
He, in a very, very nice way, hecame to me and said, all right,
you asked me for a pony.

(55:43):
Great.
Do you know what kind of pony?
How are you gonna feed the pony?
Where are you gonna keep thepony?
How's the pony gonna live?
This is not even my problem.
This is a state issue.
Um, and, and in a, in a, aroundabout way, that's kinda the
message you gave.
The thought to me was, allright, so we've got a state
issue, so we have a very easyway for them to kick it down.

(56:05):
It wasn't collaborated and in ashort span of time, I wasn't
able to go with UMA, but UMA wasthere too.
So we had T-T-A-N-L-A-U-M-A, soyou have the motor coach
operations, you have NMT, taxiand Paratransit, and some
smaller school bus, and the limoassociations all converging, all

(56:25):
asking for the same thing.
At a roundabout way, whathappens when we say, Hey?
We've all come together as anindustry.
This is the shared problem.
This is what we want a taskforce to look like.
Here's a blueprint for it.
We'd like you to endorse it.
The whole game changes.
Now let, let me be abundantlyclear.

(56:46):
Cornerstone did an incrediblejob and putting stuff together
for us.
TTA a's side did an incrediblejob putting stuff together for
them.
I don't want anyone to thinkthat I'm trying to say, Hey, you
know, enough wasn't done, orstuff like that.
For me, it's, I saw thisopportunity for a shared issue
that I'm watching put people outof business.

(57:07):
Right?
And don't get me wrong, we playa huge part in that because your
training, your telematics, allthose pieces, but it, it's grown
to a point where.
We as an industry, a largerpassenger ground transportation
industry, have this opportunityto come together.
I volunteer as Tribune, right?
I am happy to help coordinatethat.

(57:28):
I've tried to put myself intouch with all the right people,
but I think at a certain pointthe leaders have to come
together and say, these are themain issues.
We're not gonna agree on all of'em.
We're not gonna want the samething on all of them.
But if we become that squeakywheel that gets the grease and
we're able to get that messageout there effectively as a

(57:49):
group, and we're able to poolresources and time and money to
do that, guys, there's a reasonthat the Amish can build a whole
barn so quickly and then get itto last for so long.

Ken Lucci (58:01):
Do we need them on the task

James Blain (58:02):
Look, look, it shows I live out in Kansas,
right?
It IME immediately goes to abarn

Ken Lucci (58:07):
no.
You know, I, I think you've, Ithink you've hit upon something
that, you know, at the beginningof the podcast, we didn't think
we were gonna come up with, wedidn't think about this as the
aha moment, but at the end ofthe day, I believe the chauffeur
space can only do this much onits own.
And the UMA or the, the bus guyscan do this much,

James Blain (58:29):
Uh, don't say theirs is bigger.
You're gonna make people upset.
Ken, we,

Ken Lucci (58:33):
But, but,

James Blain (58:34):
gotta pull their weight.

Ken Lucci (58:35):
but collectively, collectively, what you can do is
you can, you can bring the legalexperts together, like the, I
mean Matt does, should be, heworks across all

James Blain (58:47):
Uh, look, if I'm gonna have a partner in crime
and getting everyone together,it's gonna be Matt.
So Matt, I love you to death.
I'm volunteering you.
If you're up for it, buddy.
I know you are.

Ken Lucci (58:54):
no, but, but, but I think that if it's much, much,
much more impactful, if.
On the days on the hill orwhatever you send to each state,
uh, both the governors and theinsurance certificate insurance,
um, head of insurance agencies,no, the in what's, what's the
guy in the state that takes careof the insurance?

James Blain (59:16):
Oh, the insurance commissioner.

Ken Lucci (59:18):
Yeah.
But, but you should have thesame package sent to every
state.
You, you are right that theinsurance is a state issue, but
I'll tell you what's not, it'snot, it's tot reform is a
national issue and it is a stateissue from the perspective of
state legislatures.
But you're right, I think all ofthe passenger transportation

(59:39):
space needs to come together.
And I hate to say this, but theinsurance companies can only do
so much, and their inclinationmight be, you know what?
Fuck this.
We're gonna just go to anothermarket.
That's what I'm afraid of.
Wait a minute.
That's what I'm afraid of.
That's what I'm afraid of.
I'm afraid that you're gonnalose the good guys in the

(01:00:00):
insurance space that are gonnasay, screw this.
You know what?
Let's start insuring horses.
It's less risky.

James Blain (01:00:07):
Well,

Ken Lucci (01:00:08):
think it is.
I don't think it is, by the way,but let's,

James Blain (01:00:10):
is, right?

Ken Lucci (01:00:11):
but let's start it.
Let's start ensuring somethingelse, okay?
And that's what worries me themost.
And these guys are, they'vetaken it as far as they can go
alone.
And, and believe it or not, theyare your allies in this, okay?
Because you know what?
They wanna make money.
They wanna go back to the timesthat commercial vehicle was a

(01:00:34):
moneymaking sector of what theydid.
And it's not.

James Blain (01:00:37):
and tort reforms in their best interest, right?
And I, and everybody's, oh man,they got a new boats, a new
blah, blah, blah.
They're rich.
The insurance company.
Look, I have a good friend andinsurance, I have a very good
friend in insurance.
I'm not gonna say who it isbecause I don't wanna call him
out, but, he literally at onepoint told me, he is like, dude,
I go to these conferences.
I tell'em I'm in, you know, I'min like, you know, paid
commercial auto, you know,basically like limmer chauffeur

(01:00:58):
buses, and they're like, dude,the hell's wrong with you.
And they start targetingmargins, right?
And, and their margins, right?
He's like, we make this much.
And they're like, ha ha, yousuck.
We make this much.
Right?
And, and so I think part of itis, believe it or not, if they
can get tort reform, tortreform's a massive win for your
insurance company too.
But at the same token, you know,I see the same thing.

(01:01:21):
I was sitting at a, I wassitting at a dinner table at
CBA, which, which by the way,for those of you who don't know,
we had CBA and C-D-N-L-A goingin the same time.
I was asked by the bus industrysafety council to speak,
California Bus Association.
And they had, during that, theyhad their bus industry safety
Council west.
And I was asked to present.
So I had my team

Ken Lucci (01:01:41):
Did you see my buddy?
Did you see my buddy Jeff Brushout there from Avalon?
One of my favorite people in theindustry?

James Blain (01:01:46):
did not have a chance.
I don't know if Jeff was there.

Ken Lucci (01:01:49):
Well, if he was, I'll tell you right now, if he was,
he didn't announce himselfbecause he's the, look, he's the
biggest sleeper company outthere that doesn't really, he's
not, he's a great guy though.
He's a funny guy too.
He's a great guy.
He's one of my favorite guys totalk to in the afternoon.
'cause he calls me fromCalifornia.
and, and listen, to be honest,he's not for sale.
Don't say that.
I mean, he, he, he, he's on thebuy side of some stuff.

(01:02:12):
And then we worked, we workedwith him on the coach USA deal.
He,'cause he was successful bidanyway and I think he was gonna
be at the CBA.
Alright, so we need to bringthis back home because it, it

James Blain (01:02:24):
I I think we bring it back home with, with, I think
we gotta come to terms with thefact that all of our lanes,
right.
We've now gone, it's not, it'snot Jersey anymore, where you
have two highways with a massivedivider and the trucks go over
here and the cars go over there.
Right.
I think what we've come down tonow is we are all on this
highway together.

(01:02:45):
We've got all of these lanesthat we thought were completely
separate, and now most of us areall just at the point where we
can look next to each other andsee the industry next to us, and
we've gotta find ways to startrolling the window down and
collaborating and workingtogether across those lanes for
common goals.

Ken Lucci (01:03:05):
Look, I, and I think it, it, I, I do think that, you
know, just two, two idiots on apodcast here, I think, I think,
you've come up, I think you'vecome up, with something that it,
it is to the point where it isliterally a, it's, it's a brush
fire and it's taken over.

(01:03:25):
It's taken over all of ourlandscapes.
So I think this is a call outto.
The heads and the executiveboards of all of the
transportation associations.
The two idiots on a podcastthink that it would be nice to
explore a joint task force onthe insurance issue of every

(01:03:47):
National TransportationAssociation, every state
association, and the largestoperators in all spaces to get
together to pool capital and togo in a common direction.
This has probably been the mostimportant podcast that we've,

(01:04:09):
that this is probably ourbiggest contribution to the
industry is your I is your ideato have all of the associations
collaborate together.
On the commercial insurancecrisis.
So that is the perfect way toend this podcast, monumental

(01:04:31):
day.
Uh, whenever this damn thinghits, you're gonna remember the
date that it hit, because weflat out came with, came up with
a brilliant idea.

James Blain (01:04:39):
Yep.
And, and, and I'm gonna make iteasy, right?
Like

Ken Lucci (01:04:43):
Yes,

James Blain (01:04:44):
easy to get ahold of LinkedIn, Facebook, email.
I'm at like every show.
Get ahold of me.
I have, I am volunteeringpersonally.
This is something that I thinkour industry needs.
I know it's something that it'snot just, yeah, I know.
It's something that not just Iwant, but as someone that works
with so many differentassociations, I would love to

(01:05:05):
coordinate this with those outthere that thinks it needs

Ken Lucci (01:05:08):
And you know something, as I close this
podcast out, I've missed dihaving these podcasts with you
because you've been outtraveling.
So I've, I've had to just pitch,hit on my own.
But I love the passion you'redisplaying today.

James Blain (01:05:21):
I, I, look, I gotta say I, and for those of you that
don't know, this is not thedirection we were thinking we
would go with this episode.
Ken and I get together, we dothese episodes, we have a topic,
and then we just, we kind of goand so I, I think part of that,

Ken Lucci (01:05:36):
But this was gold.
This was,

James Blain (01:05:37):
industry.

Ken Lucci (01:05:38):
I, you know what I I, I, I absolutely do, and on my
worst day, I say, I'm gonna openthat damn hot dog cart any day
now.
But I want to see this throughto a conclusion.
I, I, you know, we, we've beeninvolved in some fantastically
large transactions that, youknow, maybe we'll talk about at
some point.
But, uh, but I see this commonthread that's through the

(01:05:59):
industry, and I hear the ins,the best guys in the insurance
space basically say, this is,this is a terrible situation for
us too.
And, but what I've heard you saytoday is the closest damn thing
I've seen to a universalsolution, or at least a
universal approach.
to tackling this thing together.
Together.
I think the, all of the privatepassenger transportation

(01:06:21):
associations can be 10 xstronger.
So, um, I love your passion,man.
Thank you for, thank you verymuch for coming in off the road.
this has been the GroundTransportation Podcast with
James Blaine from PAX Training,just touchdown in Kansas to kiss
his wife and to, uh, before thenext show.

(01:06:41):
And I'm Ken Lucci from DrivingTransactions.
We do financial analysis,business valuations, and m and a
advisory.
Thanks and, we'll see you on thenext episode.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get

(01:07:02):
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.