June 19, 2025 • 31 mins
Today, Velocitor Solution’s Rudy Nemeth talks about the evolution of fleet technology from digitizing basic processes to integrated platforms that enhance safety and efficiency!
Rudy highlights how utilizing AI in fleet management helps identify safety issues, existing data challenges in logistics companies, cash flow constraints faced by small businesses, and the benefits of technology advancements!
About Rudy Nemeth
As the VP of Sales at Velocitor Solutions, Rudy has over 25 years of experience in new business development for mobile software solutions and managed mobile services. His expertise includes Enterprise Cross-Platform Mobile Apps, Mobile Back-End, and ERP Integration. He also manages a fleet management system that includes GPS tracking, telematics monitoring, FMCSA-compliant ELD system, driver score cards, and in-cab video. His vertical markets include Consumer Packaged Goods, Field Service, Transportation and Logistics, Manufacturing, Retail, and Field Sales. He’s passionate about delivering innovative and effective mobile solutions to various industries and helping businesses optimize their operations and performance.
Connect with Rudy
- Website: https://velocitor.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rudynemeth/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the blame moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger boss hey.
(00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines.
But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information.
If this is your first time tuning in, welcome.
This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen.
(00:46):
And I say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I. I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
Happy Thursday, everybody.
I got a very special guest for you guys here today.
(01:07):
I'm going to bring him up here in a second, but I do just got to drop in on little announcements here, because my team reminds me all the time that I have to start saying what I say at the end of the show, at the beginning of the show as well.
So if you guys get value in what you're here today and you're subscribed, not you subscribe to the show, you guys.
And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify as well, because if you saw value, that's how your network's going to see value as well.
(01:32):
All right, you guys, let's dive right in here.
I'm.
You know, when it comes down to it, there's.
There's a ton of technology and resources that are out there to help you run a more efficient business out there, and especially on the fleet side of things.
And with AI and safety being, you know, coming up left and right there, you guys, I figured we might as well talk about it on this show.
So I have Mr. Rudy Nemeth on the show.
(01:53):
He's the VP of Sales over at Velocity.
So, Rudy, thank you so much for joining me here today.
Hey, Chris, thanks for having me, man.
How are you?
No, dude, I'm doing well.
And I appreciate you taking the Time here.
And, you know, it's one of those things where Thia.
You know, because, like, my dad was a driver, Rudy, and he drove back in, like the 70s, 80s and 90s, and, like, what is out there today, I think literally would just drive him absolutely crazy just because, like, dude, like, he.
(02:21):
He would just run on log paper, log books, you know, he may or may not have had a few of them in the cab of his truck at that time, and the industry was different.
But I think what I love the most about what is available out there in today's market is it can help a lot of the fleets run a way more efficient operation.
And we're going to get into a lot of that stuff here.
So.
But, Rudy, what brain brought you into Velocity, or how'd you get your start there?
(02:45):
So I joined the company in the year 2004.
So I've been here, I've been doing this a long time.
And at the time, Velocity was really focusing on mobile technology and really taking that piece of being a driver.
When you're on paper, you have your invoice, you have all the things you got to do, and making it electronic.
I was super excited about that technology.
(03:07):
I thought it had a big future.
And we've been at it ever since, growing, working with clients and essentially making something way easier for them.
That used to be difficult, right?
So, you know, it's just been a great journey.
So how are you guys, like, redefining everything that's going on right now and, you know, from, like, fleet performance and everything?
(03:29):
Because, like, obviously AI is all over everything in every industry out there.
So how are you guys really leveraging that technology and bringing it out to your guys as users, no doubt.
Well, I mean, we're doing it multiple different ways.
You know, I think if you look at how the company started, you know, at that time, were really just going, like I mentioned, were going after companies that, you know, had an invoice, a piece of paper, a pen, one of those big clipboards and all that kind of stuff, you know, and essentially just giving them a mobile computer.
(04:00):
Right.
But the challenge was, is often at that time, drivers really were scared of technology.
You know, they really didn't want to go in there and, you know, and learn how to do something new.
So what we did different is we made it way easier, right?
So we took all the things they do and we really just kind of mimicked how they follow the process and made it very easy.
(04:22):
Right.
And over the years, we started adding all sorts of technology, like video technology, tracking of telematics, you know, and all that kind of stuff, you know, and then now we put it all under one platform.
So where AI comes into place is, you know, you have these cameras that go into a vehicle.
Well, at the end of the day it just ends up being a bunch of footage.
(04:43):
Right?
So the AI looks for things.
It looks for drivers on the road that, you know, may be cutting you off.
You're following them too closely.
It looks for the driver safety.
Are they on the phone?
Are they following proper safety procedures?
Right.
And you know, all that machine vision around that makes it way easier for the dispatcher to see what's going on, how they're doing things, how they run their freight.
(05:05):
But what makes us a little bit different, we also merge the business data into it.
So now you have that paperless invoice, you have the ability to have your bill of lading electronically down the road.
You know, where AI is really coming into play for us and many of the others we work with is it's, you got a lot of data, right?
That creates a lot of information.
(05:26):
It's way easier to find it.
It's going to make it way easier to say, show me this driver, show me how safe they are.
Show me, you know, all the things they have to do, you know, routing.
Are you at the right place?
Are you going to be at the.
Where are you going to be in an hour?
How can you get there Easily, Right.
So it just makes it way easier to run an operation for the driver to get to where they're going and also make sure that they're safe about it.
(05:50):
Yeah.
And you know, that's the thing is I don't know if enough companies actually a leverage their data or understand how much data they truly have and how they can roll that out and apply it to make better business decisions out there.
Right.
Because again, I'm, you know, I'm very much the it from the old school thought in freight, but I also am like, we got to leverage all of this stuff to our benefit here and now.
(06:13):
It's like with the resources that are at your disposal, I mean, just with a lot of the tools, man, it doesn't necessarily cost as much as you think.
And again, you need to leverage this stuff because again, I look at it especially like, again, I don't own trucks, but you know, I work with a ton of trucking companies every single day inside of my brokerage here.
And you know, we always are, we try and take that proactive approach where we want to reload the same carriers time and time again.
(06:36):
We want to, we do not want to go out and try and find new capacity, especially when we have proven carriers that have done a phenomenal job for our customers out there.
But again, it's like that's all data points.
Is, is the, are the lanes that you're running right now the most profitable ones for you?
Is there anything that you can see in.
You know, again, I'm not about like putting in a mandate about like governing trucks for a certain speed or anything like that, but again, if you're looking at engine efficiencies and fuel burn efficiencies and everything out there, what does it cost if your drivers are running at 70 as opposed to 65 miles an hour, what does that do for your fuel burn, which is one of the largest expenses for a trucking company out there?
(07:15):
And again, it's like taking all of this information and then compiling it into a seamless, easy to read report to help you make a better decision out there.
I think that's what I'm looking forward to the most.
And I truly feel like this is next golden era, you can call it, that's going to truly level the playing field to where a smaller fleet or a smaller brokerage can pack a larger punch out there in the market due to leveraging the right technology, right?
(07:41):
Yeah.
I mean, you hit a lot of the points, Chris.
I mean, the big thing that becomes challenging for companies is this technology tends to look very expensive and be very expensive for people to implement and put together.
The other challenge is that you will have three or four different solutions giving this information.
So if you're operating trucks or, you know, if you're in freight brokerage and whatever else you're doing, you have to go into this system to look at one thing and another system look at the other.
(08:09):
You know, that's one of the challenges that we address here is we need to put all this info, right, and make it available behind one pane of glass, which we do with our solutions.
Right.
But then the other important part is we need to make it available to the appropriate parties to where they can log in and they can exchange that info easily.
Right?
(08:29):
And you know, technically that's not really difficult administratively, it tends to be a challenge sometimes.
And that's something that we do every single day to make it easier for these guys.
You know, the point you mentioned that a lot of data is created becomes a thing, right?
Because you have everything from Info from your camera, info from your engine, your business process, right?
(08:52):
You have your inspections, you have your compliance documentation, you have the actual business of what you're delivering.
The AI piece of making it searchable and making it easy for people to see and implement is where the key is and where the future is going to be for the players that get into this very quickly.
No, I'm right there with you, man.
I think the big.
(09:13):
And again, speaking of data, you need a lot of data to do this, but I truly feel like predictive analytics is the future, right?
Like when it comes down to maintenance, preventative maintenance, and then keeping your fleets and your equipment running out there, I think that's the biggest thing.
So it's like, how does that influence maybe where things are trending out there in, you know, like from a preventative maintenance or a maintenance schedule out there?
(09:37):
Well, what happens with that is you have to feed it the right info, you know, and some of it may seem very basic, but you have to have your truck numbers together, the mileage together, right?
To make sure that, you know what miles are on the vehicle.
And a lot of that is electron, right?
And from There, you know, AI engines can go in and say that, look at 5,000 miles on this particular make and model.
(09:57):
We need to look at this, we need to address this, right?
Your tire burn, how quickly you're burning tires, your tire type, you know, all the little things that go into running an operation, a vehicle in a vehicle, you start putting all that together, you know, and the systems can tell you, okay, you need to address these five items.
When the trucks get to this mileage, this age and so on, you start putting all that together.
(10:22):
Well, you can get ahead of things.
You can get ahead of breakdowns.
You can make sure that your fleet is operating at a, you know, as.
As high of a percent as you can, right?
That you can avoid breakdowns and essentially not running your truck.
And that costs you money.
No, and that's exactly it, right?
I mean, cash flow is obviously it's king in any business, but it's, you know, most small businesses at the end of the day, I mean, I probably say this, I've been saying this a lot lately than I have in the past manager.
(10:51):
Like most small businesses are 30 days away from going out of business every single month, right?
Cash flow constraints and everything else.
So it's like you have to look at that cost benefit analysis here of it, right?
Like with predatory towing being a whole other subject that we could probably talk for at Least an hour about right now is, you know, do what, what you got to look at it.
It's going to cost you one way or another here.
(11:12):
If you are not monitoring the vehicle, your truck's performance out there, when it comes to tires, brakes, just the simple maintenance that comes along with it does lead to that big breakdown.
And then again, you got to ask yourself, do you have 15 grand to get it towed?
I mean, again, I'm just throwing a number out there, but I've seen pretty ridiculous tow bills.
And then on top of it, does the shop that they're towing it to have the capabilities to fix what is needed on your truck, are they going to have tow it somewhere else?
(11:37):
You know, if you're in a rural part of the country, man, you could be down for two weeks before they could get parts out there.
And then on top of that, do they have a mechanic who can actually service it?
Right.
And again, you might be saying, dude, that sounds like an extreme, an example.
And it.
And it very well could be, but this is a very real scenario that somebody has been faced with, and unfortunately, somebody will be faced with again in the future.
Right.
And there's people listening to this that tell you that we've been there.
(11:59):
You know, most fleet operators will tell you we've been there, you know, so you want to get ahead of that.
But you also.
A lot of it also comes to is where these trucks go in, are you routing them properly, where they don't end up in areas where.
Where they could have an issue.
And all this data has to play together.
Right.
So you know that if you're going down a certain highway at a certain day at a time, you know, there's no one going to be available to help you for a long time.
(12:25):
Yeah, a lot of that just depends on where you put them, how you route them.
And, you know, what do you need for routing?
I mean, you need to know where to go in what order to make sure you avoid traffic the most you can, to make sure you're as efficient as you can be, that you got the right load, the.
You know, and that you're hitting your customer as quick as you can at the appropriate time.
(12:45):
All that takes data and all that takes systems.
So.
No, absolutely.
So what does that look like, man?
What does a fully connected ecosystem look like here?
And, you know, and how close is that to being achieved out there in the market right now?
Well, a lot of that data we already have today.
Right.
And usually that starts at the Beginning of the day, when the, when a driver goes to their truck, they do their pre trip inspection, right?
(13:09):
So the pre trip inspection goes and says, look at these items that we need to check on every single truck.
If there's a failure, we take a photo, we get a different truck, we reschedule their out.
And once they do that and they sign off on it, they have to know where to go and they have to know in what order they have to visit their stops, they're in an ltl situation, they're making several stops during the day.
(13:30):
We have to know where they're going, in what order, in the most efficient manner.
Once we know that we have an app, we log in, we go to our first stop, we have a camera that keeps us safe, right.
That, that records things that make sure that we're going the right speed, right limit.
We have an ETA of when we're supposed to be there.
We have an actual when we have arrived.
When we're there, we want to be there at the appropriate time.
(13:53):
So we're not doing pickups and deliveries when your docks may be loaded or blocked, right.
Where you can't get to it and you're just sitting waiting for someone to get out of the way.
And once we do that, we get in and out the quickest we can and we go to the next stop, right.
And that goes from stop to stop.
Or if you're doing line haul, you know, you want to arrive at the appropriate time.
(14:13):
So all that information is there.
All that information is reportable with the system like ours, right.
It all plays together and then you want to get there and get to where you're going in the quickest, most efficient way.
The maintenance is a part of it, the driver safety is a part of it, the business process is a part of it.
And the communication in making sure you have the right paperwork, everything electronically, it gets you there.
(14:37):
But you got to think about it, the driver too, right.
The system has to be easy to use.
There's tons of overhead that can be created in getting this information.
The vehicle inspection may be very complicated.
It may have tons of things on there that never get looked at because it's too much.
Right.
You know, from a routing perspective, most drivers know how to get to where they're going.
(14:58):
They've been doing it for years.
Right.
So you got to look at that and give them some autonomy to make some adjustments on into the system as well.
Again, I keep preaching simplicity on this stuff at the mobile level because most drivers don't want this over complicated app or over complicated system, they have to learn, and then you got to train them, and then you end up getting bad data that way.
(15:21):
Right.
So you got to look at the entire scope of what's happening and really give the drivers just what they need.
No more.
Not more than that.
Yeah.
No.
And that's the thing.
You know, I, My godfather, he.
He drove back in the day as well, and then he, you know, got back on the road here as a kind of a winter hobby just to stay busy out there.
(15:45):
And I mean, he said it to me.
He's like, I'm like, so how was it?
Like, what was the big difference out there?
And he was like, it's extremely frustrating because I have to do eight steps before I can even drive my truck.
He's like, it's.
There's so many hoops to have to jump through at that time.
He's like, I'm not getting compensated for that time.
I like.
He's like, I understand how a lot of this and why a lot of this is a thing, but, you know, there's a lot of this stuff that's coming out there.
(16:11):
And I think, like, that's, you know, you, you said the most.
The.
The best piece there.
We got to keep this simple for the drivers because again, fleet managers, safety managers, they're going to be all about this stuff, right?
And, and I look at it a lot from the broker side of things here.
Brokers have a lot of great tools at their disposal, but it affects the driver, the end user at the most of it.
(16:34):
What is it going to do to them?
Is it going to make it harder for them to do their job?
And again, it's going to.
Is it going to build up resistance?
As a broker, do they even want to take your freight anymore?
If they got to jump through 18 steps just to take a load, the answer is probably going to be no.
They might tolerate it in a down market like we're in right now, but as soon as this goes away, I guarantee you they're going to stop tolerating a lot of this stuff.
And the same thing on the fleet side, like, is this easy for the driver to use?
(16:58):
Because ultimately they are the ones who have to deal with this out on the road.
That, that stress of they're running late, they hit traffic, whatever else, is it making their lives easier or harder?
No, it's supposed to make it easier.
And I can't tell you how many times we've been in situations where we'll Work with customers.
And we look at the system that they have and we're looking to essentially put in ours and we say, we can't believe you do all this.
(17:26):
The way we achieve that is instead of just saying, hey, here's a bunch of tech, put it out there.
We actually take the time to get on routes and get on, get in the trucks and do ride alongs and figure out exactly what the driver is doing.
And that's the key to it.
Right.
You got to figure out exactly what makes a driver tick, what makes their life easier.
(17:46):
And the more you interview them and the more you spend time with them, the easier it is to become a system because we can deal with it on the back end.
You know, all the folks that, you know, the dispatch, everyone's essentially sitting in computer screens just like you are over there yourself.
The drivers don't do that.
They don't have the patience for that.
They can't, you know, they're driving.
Yeah, so that, that is going to be the key differentiator in having a good solution is working with your driver and figuring out what's happening at their level.
(18:14):
So, you know, 90% of the trucks on the road are 10 truck or less operations.
And you know, a lot of them, you know, are in that small to midsize fleet category.
So how can they leverage this tech, do you think, to stay competitive with those enterprise level operations?
Right.
Because again, a lot of the larger providers out there, I don't know, I don't have an insight into their operations in their day to day, but they have a ton of data that they are leveraging and they are using to stay competitive out there in the market, to ultimately get the freight from the customers and everything else.
(18:45):
So how does that small to midsize fleet leverage this stuff, Rudy, so they can go out there and pack a larger punch in the market?
Best answer to that is steps.
You have to take steps.
And you know, you can't do it all at once.
You can't go in there.
I want a system that, you know, Knight Swift has or some of the biggest player you have to look at.
(19:06):
Okay, look, let's automate our vehicle inspection or let's automate just the basic bill of lading.
And then as you do that, you build on it little by little.
I think that most of the fleets that you mentioned, you'd be surprised how many folks out there have nothing.
You know, you do have an ELD at this point because it is required and so on, you know, but Most of them run without video, run without, you know, any sort of camera system.
(19:32):
They, they run with a lot of their bill of ladings on paper.
You know, a lot of that information to be, is still faxed to them.
You know, so if you just look at the entire operation automate little by little, it will not take long to get something that is competitive with the big players.
Okay.
Yeah.
(19:52):
The other thing that holds people back from systems like this is they think that these systems are so expensive.
It' Right.
And I think if you looked at it probably five, 10 years ago, that was probably true.
You know, but at this point, you know, it's way easier for a company like us to deploy a solution like this.
Right.
(20:13):
Which drives down the cost.
It drives, you know, I mean, that's tech.
Right.
Things do get cheaper, things do become easier.
You know, I remember when we first got into video, you know, where we put cameras and vehicles that were monitored oftentimes at that time, they're a couple thousand dollars a truck.
You know, you have this high monthly cost, you know, that there, that's fractions of what it costs today, you know, so, you know, a lot of operators still have that in mind, that saying, hey, you know, we still are out there in these numbers when they're very different.
(20:45):
The other thing you got to look at is there's so many trucks I walk up to that are, you know, small operators or even independents.
They have tablets, they have information, they have navigation or, you know, because some drivers are pretty techie, you know, so they'll get out and buy things on their own.
The issue is they can't always integrate it.
They can't always get the information they need on that pieces of equipment.
(21:08):
Yeah.
So, so it's just a good way to look at it and say, hey, what do we need and how do we put all the tech we have and put it together?
Yeah.
And I think that, you know, and this is coming from a small business owner's perspective here.
We want to automate as much as we possibly can inside of our operation.
Right.
Like 95 of my day as a freight broker should be automated.
(21:30):
Except for when a carrier calls me or a customer needs my attention, or if I'm out there selling, prospecting, cold calling, all of that is all human done, but it's also a. I think that there's a lot of great technology that is out there for the industry as a whole, but it's all centered towards the largest logos in the industry.
Right.
They all have that massive price point.
(21:52):
You brought it up, right.
Like back in the day, those cameras were a couple thousand bucks high monthly cost, all of that.
And I don't think that there's necessarily a resistance to automating and deploying technology in most people's operations, but it is a price thing.
And some of these companies that are out there are five, six, seven thousand dollars a month.
And then most businesses are like, that's more than my truck payments are, you know, like, how am I going to go out there and do that?
(22:18):
And again, it's a pure numbers game at that point.
So it's like, do you think that's where the future of a lot of this intelligence is headed, Rudy, in the sense of like, it's going to become very competitive to where it's like the price, I don't want to say like the price of a cup of coffee a day, but you know what I mean?
Like, it's going to get down to that point where every business or people are going to say, like, hey, 90% of the market is the small to mid sized market.
(22:41):
Why are we only going after the 10% of the trucks on the road?
Why don't we go after the 90?
Let's deploy technology out there that literally every business of every size can afford and cannot afford to not have ins of their operation.
Chris, you brought up a lot of good points.
Couple of things on that.
You know, everybody wants the big logos, all the tech players want the big logos.
(23:05):
That's what their investors want them to do, you know, But I think what happens is that the smaller players have the ability to change and that is the competitive advantage they have versus the big carriers, you know, is that for a big carrier to do a project like this, there's a lot of people involved, it's a big team.
It takes them years to deploy it.
(23:26):
When the smaller player can have something out in 30 days, you know, and by the time some of these bigger players put these projects out, the market may have changed on that, you know, so between where the cost comes down for the smaller players and where it becomes more competitive in the fact that they can be more dynamic than the big guys, that can be a very interesting advantage that I think we'll see in the future.
(23:51):
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you.
I think that the smaller businesses are going to be a lot more nimble because again, it's like, and this isn't a knock on large companies out there at all, but it takes a lot more Time to make a decision in a Fortune 500 company than it does in a five person operation, right?
The decisions are fast.
And that's the thing, man.
Time kills everything in the business world.
(24:11):
The longer you drag your feet on some of this stuff, it's just going to work against you in the long run, right?
Like, I would rather make a decision and be wrong than not make a decision at all and then be in the exact same spot in five years from now.
And I feel like that is another thing that kills a lot of businesses.
Progress is they're indecisive, right?
Like, they're like, oh, this is this big piece of technology.
(24:32):
This is.
We've never done it this way.
Why do we need to do this?
And, you know, you brought up, again, cameras a bunch of times the fact that, you know, again, I don't own trucks, but.
But when I do own trucks, we will definitely have outward facing cameras out there because I've interviewed enough insurance companies on this show of the cost savings of their premiums alone.
(24:53):
It is like, it's a.
It's a fool.
You're a fool to not have these on your fleet at this point, right?
And again, on the broker side of things here, you guys, I've been doing this a long time.
The amount of times that I have had drivers who have had their trailers damaged by a shipper or a receiver and then have it pinned on the driver and then they have no way to prove that it wasn't them.
(25:15):
Again, look at that.
Like, think of what it costs to replace a sidewall on a trailer.
You know, just a small section, couple thousand bucks.
I've seen some numbers out there from some cameras, you guys, that if that happens to you or your fleet out there one time, that pays for like three years of having cameras on your fleet, right?
And you know, with video also, what.
Sometimes you go in and your driver may get blamed for knocking a fence down when they didn't do it, you know, or.
(25:42):
Or, you know, property damage that has nothing to do with them.
We see this all the time, you know, and people do get worried about that, you know, privacy and all that kind of thing.
But at the end of the day, in today's day and age, there's no more privacy.
If you have an iPhone or android device, I mean, you know, everybody knows where you are.
I mean, that's just part of it today, I think with video, you know, outward facing and even inward facing, right?
(26:04):
Which oftentimes the driver does nothing wrong.
It exonerates them.
They're doing, they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, you know, but now they have a voice and we've seen that year after year.
You know, it's just the right thing to do.
It's the safe thing to do.
No, I get it.
Right.
And I understand the whole Big brother not wanting, you know, watching on at any given moment.
(26:24):
I completely understand and respect that.
But it's like again, you need to look at where nuclear verdicts are in the industry right now.
And yeah, that is all over the place.
Nowadays, trucks are.
The drivers are the first one blamed in every situation, no matter what.
In a commercial truck, always.
Yeah, right.
Wrong or indifferent.
That is exactly what like you're like you're guilty until proven innocent.
(26:47):
You're right.
You're not innocent until proven guilty as a driver in most situations.
Right.
You can just go through any transportation news website and look at the nuclear verdicts that are out there and that money that is that these companies are being sued for and some of them losing and then bankrupting their operations.
At that point, you know, you do.
You have to look at where we are today.
Again, I'm not here to argue what's right or what's wrong.
(27:10):
We need to play the hand we're dealt.
And when you're a business owner, there's a lot of regulations that are passed down that you might not agree with, but at the end of the day, you need to make sure your business is compliant and you need to protect that investment.
Right.
Because again, like, what, People's lives are on the line out there on the road.
You see it.
I've had a bunch of crash experts on the show as well, Rudy.
(27:30):
And you know, some of the videos that I've seen is, it's, it's insane.
And I remember being a little kid riding in with my dad, dude, I remember seeing people with tarps over them on the side of the road.
Like, as a kid, I will never forget those images.
Right.
I couldn't imagine being exposed to that on a daily basis out there.
Right.
So it's like there's a lot of stuff that happens out there, but you got to protect your business at the end of the day.
(27:54):
And with where technology is, with what is at your disposal, it.
It's only going to make you better.
It's only going to make you more competitive.
You're going to be out there, you're going to run a smarter operation.
And again, you need a way to itemize all of this.
Data, Put it in some reports to help you make those best decisions out there to keep your business moving.
(28:15):
Yeah, and I think where.
Where it's coming to now is, you know, we usually start with a video system that looks outward and inside.
You know, a lot of companies tend to turn that on if they choose to.
But now more and more fleets are asking us.
They want to look out the size, they want to look out the rear of the vehicle.
We're doing all sorts of wireless video where they can see out the back of the trailer and oftentimes even cargo in specific situations.
(28:39):
You know, now we have all sorts of technology that'll tell you know, the volume of how full a trailer is.
And that all comes into using that information into running an efficient operation, running a safe operation, you know, keeping track and good view of your property, but also using the business piece of it, too, you know, is your trailer full enough?
(29:01):
You know, could you load it more?
You know, are you loading it in the proper order?
You know, all that has to play together, and we're making it easier for fleets to see what they're doing, see how things look.
And those fleets are the ones that are well run now.
I couldn't agree more.
Rudy, Rudy, I appreciate it, man.
I could talk about business intelligence all day long and how we can make smarter decisions out there.
(29:22):
And it.
And it fits for a guy like me.
I went to public school, right?
You guys, like, I need all the help I can get with making the most intelligent decisions in business.
But, Rudy, how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you have going on?
Yes.
So we can always be reached on our website, which is velocity.com.
check us, check us out there.
Schedule a demo with us.
Take a look at what we do.
(29:42):
We'd love to show.
Show it to you, but most importantly, talk about your operation, talk about the challenges that your company may be facing.
And, you know, I guarantee you we'll have some sort of a solution for it in anything.
When it comes to Bill of Ladings, when it comes to DVIR ELD video systems, basically any.
(30:02):
Any of it or all of it.
Perfect, Rudy, I appreciate it.
If you guys can't find Rudy or Velocitor out there on social media or anything like that, hit me up.
I will gladly put you guys in contact with them.
But that will be it for today.
Ladies and gentlemen.
As always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious, which you should be rank the show on itunes and Spotify because if you saw value, your network's gonna see value as well.
(30:25):
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys, and we'll be talking to you.
Came back with a bank pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey, got the foot on the gas to the metal when the Let them hate them make a bigger ball.
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the blame moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger boss hey.
(00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines.
But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information.
If this is your first time tuning in, welcome.
This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen.
(00:46):
And I say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I. I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
Happy Thursday, everybody.
I got a very special guest for you guys here today.
(01:07):
I'm going to bring him up here in a second, but I do just got to drop in on little announcements here, because my team reminds me all the time that I have to start saying what I say at the end of the show, at the beginning of the show as well.
So if you guys get value in what you're here today and you're subscribed, not you subscribe to the show, you guys.
And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify as well, because if you saw value, that's how your network's going to see value as well.
(01:32):
All right, you guys, let's dive right in here.
I'm.
You know, when it comes down to it, there's.
There's a ton of technology and resources that are out there to help you run a more efficient business out there, and especially on the fleet side of things.
And with AI and safety being, you know, coming up left and right there, you guys, I figured we might as well talk about it on this show.
So I have Mr. Rudy Nemeth on the show.
(01:53):
He's the VP of Sales over at Velocity.
So, Rudy, thank you so much for joining me here today.
Hey, Chris, thanks for having me, man.
How are you?
No, dude, I'm doing well.
And I appreciate you taking the Time here.
And, you know, it's one of those things where Thia.
You know, because, like, my dad was a driver, Rudy, and he drove back in, like the 70s, 80s and 90s, and, like, what is out there today, I think literally would just drive him absolutely crazy just because, like, dude, like, he.
(02:21):
He would just run on log paper, log books, you know, he may or may not have had a few of them in the cab of his truck at that time, and the industry was different.
But I think what I love the most about what is available out there in today's market is it can help a lot of the fleets run a way more efficient operation.
And we're going to get into a lot of that stuff here.
So.
But, Rudy, what brain brought you into Velocity, or how'd you get your start there?
(02:45):
So I joined the company in the year 2004.
So I've been here, I've been doing this a long time.
And at the time, Velocity was really focusing on mobile technology and really taking that piece of being a driver.
When you're on paper, you have your invoice, you have all the things you got to do, and making it electronic.
I was super excited about that technology.
(03:07):
I thought it had a big future.
And we've been at it ever since, growing, working with clients and essentially making something way easier for them.
That used to be difficult, right?
So, you know, it's just been a great journey.
So how are you guys, like, redefining everything that's going on right now and, you know, from, like, fleet performance and everything?
(03:29):
Because, like, obviously AI is all over everything in every industry out there.
So how are you guys really leveraging that technology and bringing it out to your guys as users, no doubt.
Well, I mean, we're doing it multiple different ways.
You know, I think if you look at how the company started, you know, at that time, were really just going, like I mentioned, were going after companies that, you know, had an invoice, a piece of paper, a pen, one of those big clipboards and all that kind of stuff, you know, and essentially just giving them a mobile computer.
(04:00):
Right.
But the challenge was, is often at that time, drivers really were scared of technology.
You know, they really didn't want to go in there and, you know, and learn how to do something new.
So what we did different is we made it way easier, right?
So we took all the things they do and we really just kind of mimicked how they follow the process and made it very easy.
(04:22):
Right.
And over the years, we started adding all sorts of technology, like video technology, tracking of telematics, you know, and all that kind of stuff, you know, and then now we put it all under one platform.
So where AI comes into place is, you know, you have these cameras that go into a vehicle.
Well, at the end of the day it just ends up being a bunch of footage.
(04:43):
Right?
So the AI looks for things.
It looks for drivers on the road that, you know, may be cutting you off.
You're following them too closely.
It looks for the driver safety.
Are they on the phone?
Are they following proper safety procedures?
Right.
And you know, all that machine vision around that makes it way easier for the dispatcher to see what's going on, how they're doing things, how they run their freight.
(05:05):
But what makes us a little bit different, we also merge the business data into it.
So now you have that paperless invoice, you have the ability to have your bill of lading electronically down the road.
You know, where AI is really coming into play for us and many of the others we work with is it's, you got a lot of data, right?
That creates a lot of information.
(05:26):
It's way easier to find it.
It's going to make it way easier to say, show me this driver, show me how safe they are.
Show me, you know, all the things they have to do, you know, routing.
Are you at the right place?
Are you going to be at the.
Where are you going to be in an hour?
How can you get there Easily, Right.
So it just makes it way easier to run an operation for the driver to get to where they're going and also make sure that they're safe about it.
(05:50):
Yeah.
And you know, that's the thing is I don't know if enough companies actually a leverage their data or understand how much data they truly have and how they can roll that out and apply it to make better business decisions out there.
Right.
Because again, I'm, you know, I'm very much the it from the old school thought in freight, but I also am like, we got to leverage all of this stuff to our benefit here and now.
(06:13):
It's like with the resources that are at your disposal, I mean, just with a lot of the tools, man, it doesn't necessarily cost as much as you think.
And again, you need to leverage this stuff because again, I look at it especially like, again, I don't own trucks, but you know, I work with a ton of trucking companies every single day inside of my brokerage here.
And you know, we always are, we try and take that proactive approach where we want to reload the same carriers time and time again.
(06:36):
We want to, we do not want to go out and try and find new capacity, especially when we have proven carriers that have done a phenomenal job for our customers out there.
But again, it's like that's all data points.
Is, is the, are the lanes that you're running right now the most profitable ones for you?
Is there anything that you can see in.
You know, again, I'm not about like putting in a mandate about like governing trucks for a certain speed or anything like that, but again, if you're looking at engine efficiencies and fuel burn efficiencies and everything out there, what does it cost if your drivers are running at 70 as opposed to 65 miles an hour, what does that do for your fuel burn, which is one of the largest expenses for a trucking company out there?
(07:15):
And again, it's like taking all of this information and then compiling it into a seamless, easy to read report to help you make a better decision out there.
I think that's what I'm looking forward to the most.
And I truly feel like this is next golden era, you can call it, that's going to truly level the playing field to where a smaller fleet or a smaller brokerage can pack a larger punch out there in the market due to leveraging the right technology, right?
(07:41):
Yeah.
I mean, you hit a lot of the points, Chris.
I mean, the big thing that becomes challenging for companies is this technology tends to look very expensive and be very expensive for people to implement and put together.
The other challenge is that you will have three or four different solutions giving this information.
So if you're operating trucks or, you know, if you're in freight brokerage and whatever else you're doing, you have to go into this system to look at one thing and another system look at the other.
(08:09):
You know, that's one of the challenges that we address here is we need to put all this info, right, and make it available behind one pane of glass, which we do with our solutions.
Right.
But then the other important part is we need to make it available to the appropriate parties to where they can log in and they can exchange that info easily.
Right?
(08:29):
And you know, technically that's not really difficult administratively, it tends to be a challenge sometimes.
And that's something that we do every single day to make it easier for these guys.
You know, the point you mentioned that a lot of data is created becomes a thing, right?
Because you have everything from Info from your camera, info from your engine, your business process, right?
(08:52):
You have your inspections, you have your compliance documentation, you have the actual business of what you're delivering.
The AI piece of making it searchable and making it easy for people to see and implement is where the key is and where the future is going to be for the players that get into this very quickly.
No, I'm right there with you, man.
I think the big.
(09:13):
And again, speaking of data, you need a lot of data to do this, but I truly feel like predictive analytics is the future, right?
Like when it comes down to maintenance, preventative maintenance, and then keeping your fleets and your equipment running out there, I think that's the biggest thing.
So it's like, how does that influence maybe where things are trending out there in, you know, like from a preventative maintenance or a maintenance schedule out there?
(09:37):
Well, what happens with that is you have to feed it the right info, you know, and some of it may seem very basic, but you have to have your truck numbers together, the mileage together, right?
To make sure that, you know what miles are on the vehicle.
And a lot of that is electron, right?
And from There, you know, AI engines can go in and say that, look at 5,000 miles on this particular make and model.
(09:57):
We need to look at this, we need to address this, right?
Your tire burn, how quickly you're burning tires, your tire type, you know, all the little things that go into running an operation, a vehicle in a vehicle, you start putting all that together, you know, and the systems can tell you, okay, you need to address these five items.
When the trucks get to this mileage, this age and so on, you start putting all that together.
(10:22):
Well, you can get ahead of things.
You can get ahead of breakdowns.
You can make sure that your fleet is operating at a, you know, as.
As high of a percent as you can, right?
That you can avoid breakdowns and essentially not running your truck.
And that costs you money.
No, and that's exactly it, right?
I mean, cash flow is obviously it's king in any business, but it's, you know, most small businesses at the end of the day, I mean, I probably say this, I've been saying this a lot lately than I have in the past manager.
(10:51):
Like most small businesses are 30 days away from going out of business every single month, right?
Cash flow constraints and everything else.
So it's like you have to look at that cost benefit analysis here of it, right?
Like with predatory towing being a whole other subject that we could probably talk for at Least an hour about right now is, you know, do what, what you got to look at it.
It's going to cost you one way or another here.
(11:12):
If you are not monitoring the vehicle, your truck's performance out there, when it comes to tires, brakes, just the simple maintenance that comes along with it does lead to that big breakdown.
And then again, you got to ask yourself, do you have 15 grand to get it towed?
I mean, again, I'm just throwing a number out there, but I've seen pretty ridiculous tow bills.
And then on top of it, does the shop that they're towing it to have the capabilities to fix what is needed on your truck, are they going to have tow it somewhere else?
(11:37):
You know, if you're in a rural part of the country, man, you could be down for two weeks before they could get parts out there.
And then on top of that, do they have a mechanic who can actually service it?
Right.
And again, you might be saying, dude, that sounds like an extreme, an example.
And it.
And it very well could be, but this is a very real scenario that somebody has been faced with, and unfortunately, somebody will be faced with again in the future.
Right.
And there's people listening to this that tell you that we've been there.
(11:59):
You know, most fleet operators will tell you we've been there, you know, so you want to get ahead of that.
But you also.
A lot of it also comes to is where these trucks go in, are you routing them properly, where they don't end up in areas where.
Where they could have an issue.
And all this data has to play together.
Right.
So you know that if you're going down a certain highway at a certain day at a time, you know, there's no one going to be available to help you for a long time.
(12:25):
Yeah, a lot of that just depends on where you put them, how you route them.
And, you know, what do you need for routing?
I mean, you need to know where to go in what order to make sure you avoid traffic the most you can, to make sure you're as efficient as you can be, that you got the right load, the.
You know, and that you're hitting your customer as quick as you can at the appropriate time.
(12:45):
All that takes data and all that takes systems.
So.
No, absolutely.
So what does that look like, man?
What does a fully connected ecosystem look like here?
And, you know, and how close is that to being achieved out there in the market right now?
Well, a lot of that data we already have today.
Right.
And usually that starts at the Beginning of the day, when the, when a driver goes to their truck, they do their pre trip inspection, right?
(13:09):
So the pre trip inspection goes and says, look at these items that we need to check on every single truck.
If there's a failure, we take a photo, we get a different truck, we reschedule their out.
And once they do that and they sign off on it, they have to know where to go and they have to know in what order they have to visit their stops, they're in an ltl situation, they're making several stops during the day.
(13:30):
We have to know where they're going, in what order, in the most efficient manner.
Once we know that we have an app, we log in, we go to our first stop, we have a camera that keeps us safe, right.
That, that records things that make sure that we're going the right speed, right limit.
We have an ETA of when we're supposed to be there.
We have an actual when we have arrived.
When we're there, we want to be there at the appropriate time.
(13:53):
So we're not doing pickups and deliveries when your docks may be loaded or blocked, right.
Where you can't get to it and you're just sitting waiting for someone to get out of the way.
And once we do that, we get in and out the quickest we can and we go to the next stop, right.
And that goes from stop to stop.
Or if you're doing line haul, you know, you want to arrive at the appropriate time.
(14:13):
So all that information is there.
All that information is reportable with the system like ours, right.
It all plays together and then you want to get there and get to where you're going in the quickest, most efficient way.
The maintenance is a part of it, the driver safety is a part of it, the business process is a part of it.
And the communication in making sure you have the right paperwork, everything electronically, it gets you there.
(14:37):
But you got to think about it, the driver too, right.
The system has to be easy to use.
There's tons of overhead that can be created in getting this information.
The vehicle inspection may be very complicated.
It may have tons of things on there that never get looked at because it's too much.
Right.
You know, from a routing perspective, most drivers know how to get to where they're going.
(14:58):
They've been doing it for years.
Right.
So you got to look at that and give them some autonomy to make some adjustments on into the system as well.
Again, I keep preaching simplicity on this stuff at the mobile level because most drivers don't want this over complicated app or over complicated system, they have to learn, and then you got to train them, and then you end up getting bad data that way.
(15:21):
Right.
So you got to look at the entire scope of what's happening and really give the drivers just what they need.
No more.
Not more than that.
Yeah.
No.
And that's the thing.
You know, I, My godfather, he.
He drove back in the day as well, and then he, you know, got back on the road here as a kind of a winter hobby just to stay busy out there.
(15:45):
And I mean, he said it to me.
He's like, I'm like, so how was it?
Like, what was the big difference out there?
And he was like, it's extremely frustrating because I have to do eight steps before I can even drive my truck.
He's like, it's.
There's so many hoops to have to jump through at that time.
He's like, I'm not getting compensated for that time.
I like.
He's like, I understand how a lot of this and why a lot of this is a thing, but, you know, there's a lot of this stuff that's coming out there.
(16:11):
And I think, like, that's, you know, you, you said the most.
The.
The best piece there.
We got to keep this simple for the drivers because again, fleet managers, safety managers, they're going to be all about this stuff, right?
And, and I look at it a lot from the broker side of things here.
Brokers have a lot of great tools at their disposal, but it affects the driver, the end user at the most of it.
(16:34):
What is it going to do to them?
Is it going to make it harder for them to do their job?
And again, it's going to.
Is it going to build up resistance?
As a broker, do they even want to take your freight anymore?
If they got to jump through 18 steps just to take a load, the answer is probably going to be no.
They might tolerate it in a down market like we're in right now, but as soon as this goes away, I guarantee you they're going to stop tolerating a lot of this stuff.
And the same thing on the fleet side, like, is this easy for the driver to use?
(16:58):
Because ultimately they are the ones who have to deal with this out on the road.
That, that stress of they're running late, they hit traffic, whatever else, is it making their lives easier or harder?
No, it's supposed to make it easier.
And I can't tell you how many times we've been in situations where we'll Work with customers.
And we look at the system that they have and we're looking to essentially put in ours and we say, we can't believe you do all this.
(17:26):
The way we achieve that is instead of just saying, hey, here's a bunch of tech, put it out there.
We actually take the time to get on routes and get on, get in the trucks and do ride alongs and figure out exactly what the driver is doing.
And that's the key to it.
Right.
You got to figure out exactly what makes a driver tick, what makes their life easier.
(17:46):
And the more you interview them and the more you spend time with them, the easier it is to become a system because we can deal with it on the back end.
You know, all the folks that, you know, the dispatch, everyone's essentially sitting in computer screens just like you are over there yourself.
The drivers don't do that.
They don't have the patience for that.
They can't, you know, they're driving.
Yeah, so that, that is going to be the key differentiator in having a good solution is working with your driver and figuring out what's happening at their level.
(18:14):
So, you know, 90% of the trucks on the road are 10 truck or less operations.
And you know, a lot of them, you know, are in that small to midsize fleet category.
So how can they leverage this tech, do you think, to stay competitive with those enterprise level operations?
Right.
Because again, a lot of the larger providers out there, I don't know, I don't have an insight into their operations in their day to day, but they have a ton of data that they are leveraging and they are using to stay competitive out there in the market, to ultimately get the freight from the customers and everything else.
(18:45):
So how does that small to midsize fleet leverage this stuff, Rudy, so they can go out there and pack a larger punch in the market?
Best answer to that is steps.
You have to take steps.
And you know, you can't do it all at once.
You can't go in there.
I want a system that, you know, Knight Swift has or some of the biggest player you have to look at.
(19:06):
Okay, look, let's automate our vehicle inspection or let's automate just the basic bill of lading.
And then as you do that, you build on it little by little.
I think that most of the fleets that you mentioned, you'd be surprised how many folks out there have nothing.
You know, you do have an ELD at this point because it is required and so on, you know, but Most of them run without video, run without, you know, any sort of camera system.
(19:32):
They, they run with a lot of their bill of ladings on paper.
You know, a lot of that information to be, is still faxed to them.
You know, so if you just look at the entire operation automate little by little, it will not take long to get something that is competitive with the big players.
Okay.
Yeah.
(19:52):
The other thing that holds people back from systems like this is they think that these systems are so expensive.
It' Right.
And I think if you looked at it probably five, 10 years ago, that was probably true.
You know, but at this point, you know, it's way easier for a company like us to deploy a solution like this.
Right.
(20:13):
Which drives down the cost.
It drives, you know, I mean, that's tech.
Right.
Things do get cheaper, things do become easier.
You know, I remember when we first got into video, you know, where we put cameras and vehicles that were monitored oftentimes at that time, they're a couple thousand dollars a truck.
You know, you have this high monthly cost, you know, that there, that's fractions of what it costs today, you know, so, you know, a lot of operators still have that in mind, that saying, hey, you know, we still are out there in these numbers when they're very different.
(20:45):
The other thing you got to look at is there's so many trucks I walk up to that are, you know, small operators or even independents.
They have tablets, they have information, they have navigation or, you know, because some drivers are pretty techie, you know, so they'll get out and buy things on their own.
The issue is they can't always integrate it.
They can't always get the information they need on that pieces of equipment.
(21:08):
Yeah.
So, so it's just a good way to look at it and say, hey, what do we need and how do we put all the tech we have and put it together?
Yeah.
And I think that, you know, and this is coming from a small business owner's perspective here.
We want to automate as much as we possibly can inside of our operation.
Right.
Like 95 of my day as a freight broker should be automated.
(21:30):
Except for when a carrier calls me or a customer needs my attention, or if I'm out there selling, prospecting, cold calling, all of that is all human done, but it's also a. I think that there's a lot of great technology that is out there for the industry as a whole, but it's all centered towards the largest logos in the industry.
Right.
They all have that massive price point.
(21:52):
You brought it up, right.
Like back in the day, those cameras were a couple thousand bucks high monthly cost, all of that.
And I don't think that there's necessarily a resistance to automating and deploying technology in most people's operations, but it is a price thing.
And some of these companies that are out there are five, six, seven thousand dollars a month.
And then most businesses are like, that's more than my truck payments are, you know, like, how am I going to go out there and do that?
(22:18):
And again, it's a pure numbers game at that point.
So it's like, do you think that's where the future of a lot of this intelligence is headed, Rudy, in the sense of like, it's going to become very competitive to where it's like the price, I don't want to say like the price of a cup of coffee a day, but you know what I mean?
Like, it's going to get down to that point where every business or people are going to say, like, hey, 90% of the market is the small to mid sized market.
(22:41):
Why are we only going after the 10% of the trucks on the road?
Why don't we go after the 90?
Let's deploy technology out there that literally every business of every size can afford and cannot afford to not have ins of their operation.
Chris, you brought up a lot of good points.
Couple of things on that.
You know, everybody wants the big logos, all the tech players want the big logos.
(23:05):
That's what their investors want them to do, you know, But I think what happens is that the smaller players have the ability to change and that is the competitive advantage they have versus the big carriers, you know, is that for a big carrier to do a project like this, there's a lot of people involved, it's a big team.
It takes them years to deploy it.
(23:26):
When the smaller player can have something out in 30 days, you know, and by the time some of these bigger players put these projects out, the market may have changed on that, you know, so between where the cost comes down for the smaller players and where it becomes more competitive in the fact that they can be more dynamic than the big guys, that can be a very interesting advantage that I think we'll see in the future.
(23:51):
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you.
I think that the smaller businesses are going to be a lot more nimble because again, it's like, and this isn't a knock on large companies out there at all, but it takes a lot more Time to make a decision in a Fortune 500 company than it does in a five person operation, right?
The decisions are fast.
And that's the thing, man.
Time kills everything in the business world.
(24:11):
The longer you drag your feet on some of this stuff, it's just going to work against you in the long run, right?
Like, I would rather make a decision and be wrong than not make a decision at all and then be in the exact same spot in five years from now.
And I feel like that is another thing that kills a lot of businesses.
Progress is they're indecisive, right?
Like, they're like, oh, this is this big piece of technology.
(24:32):
This is.
We've never done it this way.
Why do we need to do this?
And, you know, you brought up, again, cameras a bunch of times the fact that, you know, again, I don't own trucks, but.
But when I do own trucks, we will definitely have outward facing cameras out there because I've interviewed enough insurance companies on this show of the cost savings of their premiums alone.
(24:53):
It is like, it's a.
It's a fool.
You're a fool to not have these on your fleet at this point, right?
And again, on the broker side of things here, you guys, I've been doing this a long time.
The amount of times that I have had drivers who have had their trailers damaged by a shipper or a receiver and then have it pinned on the driver and then they have no way to prove that it wasn't them.
(25:15):
Again, look at that.
Like, think of what it costs to replace a sidewall on a trailer.
You know, just a small section, couple thousand bucks.
I've seen some numbers out there from some cameras, you guys, that if that happens to you or your fleet out there one time, that pays for like three years of having cameras on your fleet, right?
And you know, with video also, what.
Sometimes you go in and your driver may get blamed for knocking a fence down when they didn't do it, you know, or.
(25:42):
Or, you know, property damage that has nothing to do with them.
We see this all the time, you know, and people do get worried about that, you know, privacy and all that kind of thing.
But at the end of the day, in today's day and age, there's no more privacy.
If you have an iPhone or android device, I mean, you know, everybody knows where you are.
I mean, that's just part of it today, I think with video, you know, outward facing and even inward facing, right?
(26:04):
Which oftentimes the driver does nothing wrong.
It exonerates them.
They're doing, they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, you know, but now they have a voice and we've seen that year after year.
You know, it's just the right thing to do.
It's the safe thing to do.
No, I get it.
Right.
And I understand the whole Big brother not wanting, you know, watching on at any given moment.
(26:24):
I completely understand and respect that.
But it's like again, you need to look at where nuclear verdicts are in the industry right now.
And yeah, that is all over the place.
Nowadays, trucks are.
The drivers are the first one blamed in every situation, no matter what.
In a commercial truck, always.
Yeah, right.
Wrong or indifferent.
That is exactly what like you're like you're guilty until proven innocent.
(26:47):
You're right.
You're not innocent until proven guilty as a driver in most situations.
Right.
You can just go through any transportation news website and look at the nuclear verdicts that are out there and that money that is that these companies are being sued for and some of them losing and then bankrupting their operations.
At that point, you know, you do.
You have to look at where we are today.
Again, I'm not here to argue what's right or what's wrong.
(27:10):
We need to play the hand we're dealt.
And when you're a business owner, there's a lot of regulations that are passed down that you might not agree with, but at the end of the day, you need to make sure your business is compliant and you need to protect that investment.
Right.
Because again, like, what, People's lives are on the line out there on the road.
You see it.
I've had a bunch of crash experts on the show as well, Rudy.
(27:30):
And you know, some of the videos that I've seen is, it's, it's insane.
And I remember being a little kid riding in with my dad, dude, I remember seeing people with tarps over them on the side of the road.
Like, as a kid, I will never forget those images.
Right.
I couldn't imagine being exposed to that on a daily basis out there.
Right.
So it's like there's a lot of stuff that happens out there, but you got to protect your business at the end of the day.
(27:54):
And with where technology is, with what is at your disposal, it.
It's only going to make you better.
It's only going to make you more competitive.
You're going to be out there, you're going to run a smarter operation.
And again, you need a way to itemize all of this.
Data, Put it in some reports to help you make those best decisions out there to keep your business moving.
(28:15):
Yeah, and I think where.
Where it's coming to now is, you know, we usually start with a video system that looks outward and inside.
You know, a lot of companies tend to turn that on if they choose to.
But now more and more fleets are asking us.
They want to look out the size, they want to look out the rear of the vehicle.
We're doing all sorts of wireless video where they can see out the back of the trailer and oftentimes even cargo in specific situations.
(28:39):
You know, now we have all sorts of technology that'll tell you know, the volume of how full a trailer is.
And that all comes into using that information into running an efficient operation, running a safe operation, you know, keeping track and good view of your property, but also using the business piece of it, too, you know, is your trailer full enough?
(29:01):
You know, could you load it more?
You know, are you loading it in the proper order?
You know, all that has to play together, and we're making it easier for fleets to see what they're doing, see how things look.
And those fleets are the ones that are well run now.
I couldn't agree more.
Rudy, Rudy, I appreciate it, man.
I could talk about business intelligence all day long and how we can make smarter decisions out there.
(29:22):
And it.
And it fits for a guy like me.
I went to public school, right?
You guys, like, I need all the help I can get with making the most intelligent decisions in business.
But, Rudy, how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you have going on?
Yes.
So we can always be reached on our website, which is velocity.com.
check us, check us out there.
Schedule a demo with us.
Take a look at what we do.
(29:42):
We'd love to show.
Show it to you, but most importantly, talk about your operation, talk about the challenges that your company may be facing.
And, you know, I guarantee you we'll have some sort of a solution for it in anything.
When it comes to Bill of Ladings, when it comes to DVIR ELD video systems, basically any.
(30:02):
Any of it or all of it.
Perfect, Rudy, I appreciate it.
If you guys can't find Rudy or Velocitor out there on social media or anything like that, hit me up.
I will gladly put you guys in contact with them.
But that will be it for today.
Ladies and gentlemen.
As always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious, which you should be rank the show on itunes and Spotify because if you saw value, your network's gonna see value as well.
(30:25):
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys, and we'll be talking to you.
Came back with a bank pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey, got the foot on the gas to the metal when the Let them hate them make a bigger ball.
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