Can You Trust Your Freight Tracking Data?

0:04Thank you.

0:35Malcolm Harris: Friday edition of What The Truck. The man can hear me. He's officially back in 147 Studios out in Dallas, Texas. That's Michael Vincent. I'm Malcolm Harris. Again, welcome to the show, Mike. Man, brother, it felt so good to see you out in the Lone Star State, bro. Right on, brother. It was good to see you as well, man. An excellent visit. We did it good out here. I was just talking to a man, Frasj, about how fun it is to try and be an audio engineer. So freaking easy. We're like, somehow we're going to get sound out of this little box. Somehow it's going to happen in the next five seconds. Right?

1:16You're like, ah, shit.

1:17Malcolm Harris: Some headphones and some grit and determination can go a long way, bro. That's it, bro. We willed it. We willed it to happen. We willed it. Some champions. I lost you again. You lost me again? It's all right. It's all right because I'm going to keep us going and I'm sure you can read my lips and we'll try and make it happen. So while we figure out the audio issues on Mike's end, I just want to say, man, appreciate you guys. It's been a great week. The Enterprise Bleach Summit was absolutely fantastic. Shout out to Repower as well as Descartes too. And with that being said, let's get to the road ahead because we have a special guest on the show today.

1:59Malcolm Harris: You guys have seen this man. He's been on numerous times, but it's always good to hear from him, Mr. Andrew Weimer. All right, for those that don't know, Andrew Weimer is the Associate General Manager at Descartes, all right? And he's gonna join us to talk about freight visibility entering into its next phase. For those that don't know, the old question is always, where's my load? All right, we've asked that all the time. The new one though is, can I trust what I am seeing? And that is a great question to ask, all right? We're going to get into Descartes MacroPoint ELD Plus, while adding a second independent tracking signal changes the game, what it means when that signal doesn't match the first, and then also where AI co-workers fit in when the data flags a problem operations still have got to solve.

2:44Malcolm Harris: All right, so I'm excited to speak with Andrew here in a moment. And he's always a good sign, man. Really, really do like having him on this show. So it's going to be a good segment. But before we get to Andrew and before we get to Mike, all right, figuring out those audio issues, let's talk about who is bringing us this month's episode, all right? It is our presenting sponsor, none other than the organization that Andrew Weimer represents. It is Descartes, all right? This segment is brought to you by Descartes, introducing Descartes MacroPoint ELD Plus, which is what we're going to be speaking about today.

3:17Malcolm Harris: It's a new dual-source tracking capability that combines ELD and mobile app tracking in one session. You can spot discrepancies sooner, capture proof of delivery, and gain greater confidence in every single load. You can learn more, obviously, on the show here, but you can also learn more at Descartes.com. All right? And then also, what would we be without our supporting sponsor? This is Kooner Fleet Management Solutions. All right? Because a truck that's not moving isn't making any money. Every breakdown is the lost revenue. Oh, we got him back. He is back. Michael Vince. I'm back, baby. What's up, baby?

3:52Malcolm Harris: driving downtime and added pressure on your business. All right. That's why fleets across North America, they are trusting Kooner fleet management solutions for mobile maintenance. All right. Preventative service, DOT inspections, and nationwide repair support. Kooner's tailored services help maximize revenue by keeping trucks moving, drivers earning, and freight on schedule. Visit KoonerFMS.com slash what the truck for your complimentary fleet maintenance review. All right. And now in just a month's time, one month, one month, Uno Momento. That's not what one month means at all. That means one moment.

4:26Malcolm Harris: We're going to have all the moments at the Future of Freight Festival. I'm talking F3, October 27th and the 28th. Tickets are on sale now. Make sure you go grab them. All right. It's going to be again at the Signal, one of, if not the best venue in the scenic city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Look at that guy right there. That's me. Did you see the beard on that guy? The beard on that guy was crazy. I had to take it down a little bit. I'm going to do Freight Waves today with that guy, Zach Strickland, coming up here at noon Eastern. And there's going to be so much happening. We're going to have a What the Truck episode there.

4:58Malcolm Harris: I'm going to talk to Michael Vincent, got some ideas for him. There's going to be a lot to get into. The Lizard's going to be in the building. Craig Fuller is going to be in the building. Michael Vincent might see Adam Wingfield. You never know. There's going to be a lot. I'm sure TPC is going to be in the building. It's going to be a lot going on. Tickets are on sale now. The Lizard, look at him go. Bang, bang. All right. With that being said, there is a promo code for you. All right. If you guys are like, I've gone to a lot of conferences. There's a lot going. That promo code is Take20. All right.

5:26Malcolm Harris: Thank you so much, Cody Dowler, for being awesome. Take20 is your opportunity to literally take 20 % off of admission into the Future of Freight Festival. So guys, make sure you get your tickets. They are on sale now, October 27th and the 28th. Again, the Future of Freight Festival at The Signal. Jen Wiggins, as well as Ashley Dale, the entire events team have some great stuff planned chattanooga tennessee 27th and 28th let's lock it in folks all right yeah baby man before halloween right before halloween it's gonna get spooky if you will you take that 20 you go right down to chattanooga whiskey we'll be there in a minute

6:06Malcolm Harris: speaking of whiskey man i gotta i gotta send some love to carlos man best whiskey i've ever had in my life bourbon rather bro bro did you see that shit double eagle very double eagle very rare it was 650 a shot i mean texas is is different man everything everything's bigger in texas yeah so uh super thankful for carlos and and a great team at spartan carrier group for for what they're done and uh man let's let's get into the headlines and talk about this let's do it bro this is a crazy right here. All right. Florida troopers are now on the move, man. They recovered two stolen tractor trailers carrying tires and lithium-ion batteries at a St.

6:51Malcolm Harris: John's County truck stop. Authorities arrested Henio Gonzalez-Merlo, 42 of Jacksonville. Another driver escaped on foot. The Florida Highway Patrol arrest report details this in a September 14th operation. So this happened a little over a week and a half ago. All right. So this is what happened. GSP, they tipped off the Florida cargo theft task force, right? About a stolen tire shipment headed south on I-95. The investigators supplied the photographs showing the markings on a white Hyundai trailer. Then the detectives spotted the matching equipment near mile marker 334 around 7 30 PM. All right.

7:28Malcolm Harris: So the mismatch plates this is kind of where it came through right because they were constantly changing lanes all right the plates looked very odd there was just a lot of things happening and eventually it tipped them off mike i saw this one and i was like dude you got to be a little smarter than that don't you i mean you can't be driving it radically you can't you got to have your ducks in a row if you're committing a crime no yeah you're rolling 100 grand dirty and you got one of those pieces of paper in the window it says plate applied for it's not a good not a good move not not not a good not not a good move i mean this is look dude shipper this shipper released two loads to drivers without verifying the license plate the that it matched the actual tractor or or the tractor and trailer combination matching you gotta be smarter you gotta be smart I mean, that's the first thing.

8:27Or matching the paperwork. Yeah. It's like, come on. All they had to do was check the VIN numbers and check the paperwork against the plates and the trucks, and this never happens. No. I mean, this is, I don't know. Is this what Phil's teaching in his school, is how to actually not be incredibly stupid? I guess so. I mean, seriously, dude. I mean, it was like, did somebody from the shipper called Georgia and say hey look I had to use the bathroom and my 8 year old son dispatched this load is that what happened?

9:01Malcolm Harris: What does that lower third say right now Mike? I can't see it. It's blocked off. Has applied what? What does that say? Where? Has applied for Texas plates.

9:13Malcolm Harris: Oh my god. It's criminal mastermind 101 is to make sure that your plates actually match and yeah I don't I normally never feel bad for criminals but I kind I kind of feel bad because this is stupid. This is just absolutely dumb. I mean, I'm telling you, you and I should start a school and we'll just take the scraps from Phil's school, right? And we'll, right? Like, if you're a shipper, you go to his school. But if you're just a stupid thief, you come to Malcolm and Mike, we'll fix you up. And we'll fix you up. We'll fix you up. We'll fix you up. You know, the kids, they're saying right now, I mean, you've ever heard of the term, you know, beef, right?

9:51Malcolm Harris: You ever heard of that term before? Got beef? I ain't never had no beef with you, bro. I don't think we'll ever beef. I think we'll always be kind of linear. But beef is back on the menu, specifically when it comes to cargo theft. Where's the beef? Where's the beef? The beef is in Philadelphia. Phil Brink is reporting that four mass suspects targeted a 2026 Freightliner in Philly around 1 a.m. on Tuesday. What happened? These guys didn't just pop a seal or find an unlocked trailer. Police say they actually cut the hinges off the rear door, got inside, and stole roughly half a pallet of black Angus beef ribs before loading it into an F-150 and taking off alongside a Jeep.

10:30Malcolm Harris: No arrests have been announced, and police haven't disclosed the value of the shipment. All right, I'm not going to lie to you, bro. Because it's probably a misdemeanor. I was like, this is kind of pretty excessive. And that's what I was going to say. It is probably a misdemeanor, but like, what are y 'all boys doing? Like, what are y 'all doing right now? What do you have for us, Cody? You got something. I see you cued up. What you got for me, man? All right. So we're going to narrate this. All right. They're going to the church. Here they are. This is actual footage. How'd the dude get this?

11:05I knew it was an inside job. You see this? Look, this dude goes in the side door. He goes, look, watch. He was coming in the side door. He's like, hey, where'd you come from? Well, the door on the side was open, bro. After an hour of cutting hinges. Look, this guy comes in. hey, what took you guys so long? How the fuck did you get in there? What? This is crazy, man. This is crazy. They took a half a pallet of beef ribs. So here was the original headline. How loud? Thieves stole something. Thieves are bad.

11:42Malcolm Harris: You're incredible. You're incredible. I mean, you know what I mean? come to my my what the hell how is this I don't know look at all the context look who wrote it look at writing look what it's trying to promote and look at the article and go what what I saw it I saw it and I was like you know I mean here's another one I got another headline for this for this one Philadelphia police have no leads on beef theft laughing here's another one the laziest version of fraud coverage possible you're spicy today you're spicy like those beef ribs you're spicy like those beef ribs i like i gotta find an article fail here you go does it make any sense now you are you are hilarious um i want to talk about this one from no way all right we we love no way mahoney as always no we i love no we let's bring you guys some bankruptcy actually look look i love phil too that i wouldn't i wouldn't chide phil as much as i do if i didn't love him and love what he's doing because this type of shit is real and it and it's this is the type of stuff you just can't prevent there's nothing you can do about this it's not it's not phil's fault that these are dumb criminals it's not he's gonna take what's different to him i'm sure phil is sitting here typing this and he's like, man, this is the stupidest thing ever, but I'm going to type it.

13:13Malcolm Harris: I know what he's thinking. Shout out to Phil. I want him to run his articles by me so that I can change his headlines. Can you imagine? Some SEO optimization from Michael Vinson. How do we have this luxury? Yeah, exactly. Look, it was probably the dude on the corner who's making some Philly cheesesteaks. He ran out of meat and said, go get me some meat, boys. They said, all right, we We know a guy that knows a guy. We know a guy. We'll get you good. Yeah, we get you good. Oh, man. Let's look at these bankruptcies real quick. All right, so 16 jumping companies have been bankrupt, quote unquote, in less than a month.

13:50Malcolm Harris: All right, so to put it in perspective, Noy, he's reporting, again, 16 trucking, delivery, and transportation companies entered the bankruptcy proceedings between late August and September 21st, which was just a few days ago. All right, this isn't isolated to one type of carrier. You guys are going to see it from here. all right so you got chapter two for some seven eleven for the majority of them uh but again this is just it's it's kind of putting perspective what's currently happening again some file for chapter 11 and for those that don't know this is just meaning they're attempting to reorganize while several smaller carriers entered the chapter seven stage which generally means liquidation one of the larger names go ahead yeah no chapter seven means no loss yeah yeah that means yeah Yeah.

14:33Malcolm Harris: It means, hey, I'm not saying we're going home, but we're getting the hell up out of here. And then one of the larger names in the group, though, I do want to make this caveat, Globemaster, they reported 51 power units and liabilities between$1 million and$10 million. So, again, take this headline for a grain of salt, right? When you're looking at the different chapters, understanding that, yes, there is bankruptcy, but there is difference between bankruptcy and then total complete exit, a lot of what you're seeing is 11. Go ahead, Mike. It is great information. It's good. I would like to, these are the type of things where I go a little bit deeper and find something more.

15:11I mean, everything that I read, I go, okay, let's see if this is for real and that type of stuff and see what's actually going on here. Because it is confusing. There's chapter 11. There's chapter 7. There's 51 units. There's one unit. There's four higher. There's not for higher. There's different reasons why these guys went out. Not all of them are market related, right? Some of them are things that went on that have nothing to do with the fact that there's a downturn in freight or rates when it happens. There's many different reasons for filing Chapter 11 or 7, even as a trucking company. The thing to really point out here is that it's actually a lower rate than last year.

15:47It's still too much. Not saying it's insignificant, but it's lower than last year. Now, take that for what it's worth. Who knows? What was the environment now versus then? What is the environment going to happen? But it's interesting to see this. And if you dig deep enough, which Noe doesn't have enough time or space in that article to go as deep as he probably wants to, because there's all kinds of information you can glean. The idea is this. Read Noe and then research what he's talking about.

16:15Malcolm Harris: Because it's important. Couldn't agree more. I could not agree more. You can read more on that one at FreightWaves.com. I want to talk about this next one because, you know. I love this one. Michael is a data guy. All right. So we're going to really get into this one. This Coke Zero right here. I'm giving you guys free promo. It's kind of making me burp up here. I am so sorry. I just burped all in your ears. That was crazy. All right. So this number has everybody's attention, 40%. All right. So Phil Brink, this is him. He was reporting that 40 % of loss prevention professionals surveyed by SmartSense said cargo theft is costing their organizations at least$1 million annually.

16:52Malcolm Harris: 28 % reported losses exceeding the$2 million mark. All right, so the survey, for those that don't know it, covered 150 U.S.-based professionals working across loss prevention, security, logistics, risk management as well. 79 % said they're more concerned about cargo theft today than ever before, and 81 % believe the crime has become increasingly more organized. But look at what they're worried about the most. The thing is fraudulent pickups and carrier impersonation. That topped the list at 78%. and spoofing at 71 percent trailer that came in at 66 percent and then something i thought would be a bit higher because it's happening more frequent but i guess not double brokering is at 64 percent mike what's up man tell me what's up i found that surprising as well that that's lower yeah at first at at first but then if you look at who is being actually uh surveyed who is being surveyed, right?

17:48It is, it is these, they're loss prevention professionals. If you look at, at brokers and what they deal with, their biggest one is going to be, is going to be double brokering.

17:59Malcolm Harris: Yeah, for sure. Right. If it's so, and that's why like in my notes, I put in their bias much because you, you can't go to a bunch of loss professionals and say, Hey, and ask them these questions because guess what you're going to get what's up the these percentages that make it look like 80 of the loads are being spoofed and and and and 79 of the loads are having this and blah blah blah blah blah there's nothing in this article that is of any value at all and i'll stand by with that to anybody that wants to so what you're saying it's a it's a it's a great reporting i'm Not Phil. I mean, this is a real thing that came out.

18:42But look at this. Duh. I mean, they're lost provincial. 40 % of them said, hey, my job's important.

18:53Malcolm Harris: That's all it is. You're saying the data is skewed, basically? It's not a true representation of the data? Well, no, it's true data. There's nothing wrong with this data at all. It's the survey and the methodology that is completely bogus. Ah, okay. I see. I'm with you. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that makes sense. A loss professionals. Is there a lot of theft? Yeah, man. It's rampant. Things are crazy, man. I'm busy all day long, man. If this company fires me, they're done because this is... Duh. Yeah. No, everything's hunky-dory here. They don't need me. I don't need a job. I mean, look, it's like watching the Emmys or the Oscars.

19:36I mean, it's exactly it's actors giving actors awards

19:40Malcolm Harris: Yeah, that is a very good analogy I'm very impressed That was a very good analogy That's all this is, man 150 orthopedic surgeons concluded that knee injuries are an epidemic Well, no shit, really? No shit That is shocking as hell Because there's no data here, there's no way you don't take this and go, oh my God, crime is up. Like, like you just said, you thought that double brokering would be higher. Yeah. These are, this is opinions and anecdotal BS from people who are going to tell you that this is an epidemic because it's their livelihood. It is of zero data. You can't glean from this that, Hey, double brokering is not a, not a big deal anymore.

20:27And we shouldn't be concerned of it because these other things are higher. Right.

20:30Malcolm Harris: Absolutely. Absolutely. What confused me is they didn't say, hey, dude, I really get confused by people who have tag applied for on the back of their tractor. Yeah. Yeah. Point blank. I like that. Mike drop. I don't know what else to tell you. That's my real. There's nothing else to you. I appreciate you. Off the top of the road, let's look at this last from John Kingston. We got a special fifth article for you guys today. Andrew Weimer is in the bullpen. He's ready to go. I love Andrew Weimer. Let's talk a little diesel. All right. So it's fascinating one coming out of fuel. John Kingston is reporting that the talk of restricting U.S.

21:09Malcolm Harris: diesel exports sent ULSD futures down more than 16 cents a gallon on Wednesday, a 3.35 decline. At the same time, gasoline futures jumped nearly 10 cents. Why? According to Kingston, refiners don't make diesel in isolation. The same refinery runs also produce gasoline and jet fuel. The S &P Global Energy's analysis says that if an export ban created a big domestic diesel surplus, refiners could respond by cutting crude runs. That would reduce diesel supply, yes, but then also gasoline and jet fuel production potentially putting upward pressure on those prices. President Trump has signaled support for considerations, excuse me, considering restrictions, while Energy Secretary Chris Wright has publicly argued against an outright ban.

21:51Malcolm Harris: and reports indicate a 90-day restriction has been among the other options under consideration. So I guess this headline is something. I mean, this is really just saying keep more diesel here, increase domestic supply, and hopefully bring prices down. But energy markets don't necessarily operate in a vacuum. I mean, when you saw this, Mike, I know you are a futures guy. You're a diesel guy. What is your thought process about this reporting from John? I know it's good, but what do you think underneath the hood? John is awesome. I love Kingston and mad respect for what he does. I've had these discussions with him and I've had them with Zach, and we just don't see eye to eye on the basic philosophy of what is going on here.

22:33I understand how the markets work. I understand. My problem with it is that it's all bogus BS and it's built on a sham, right? Petroleum prices react to whether or not somebody thinks they can make money on it in the near to long term in mid-future. Period. Period. The end. That's it. There's no other reason for it to go up or down. Here's another proof that others will say, well, no, it's more complicated. It is not more complicated than that in any way, shape, or form. Nobody restricted anything. Nobody stopped exporting diesel or oil or anything else like that. Nobody stopped producing jet fuel or gasoline, yet the markets reacted.

23:17That's BS, and it shouldn't be. It should not be traded. It just shouldn't. And I wish people jumped on this because here's the reality. We talked about some other things. You see those carriers that went under? The biggest one was 51. The vast majority of them are like five trucks and less that go out, right? The little guys in this market, right? You know what's happening here?

23:43Malcolm Harris: What's that? Right? Okay, look. Diesel prices are through the roof. Oil prices are through the roof because there's this, oh, my God, there's a shortage and there's supply and demand. B.S., it is not supply and demand. over the last year, Marathon Petroleum,$12.6 billion in profits, net profits, not gross. Phillips 66, same deal. Yeah. And they gave out$6.3 billion in dividends and buybacks in Q2 alone. That's double the return from the previous year. Yet you're paying$5 a freaking gallon at the pump. Why? Why? Because somebody says, hey, you know what? Maybe instead of draining our oil reserves and our diesel reserves by exporting, we just keep it for ourselves and drop the price.

24:33And it doesn't work. Everything else goes up. Why? Because people think they're going to make money off of the price going up. Period. The end.

24:41Malcolm Harris: Thank you. Thank you very much. No, I think that was very eloquently put. You get a full breakdown on this one on FreightWaves.com. We're also going to talk about this a little bit later on Freight Waves today with myself and Zach Strickland. So you can get some details in there from Mr. Strickland. But right now, let's bring out the guy who is, I mean, all you can say, he's just a guy. He doesn't need much introduction. He is Andrew Weimer, of course, representing Daycard. Andrew, looking dapper as ever. Welcome back to the show, brother. It's good to see you, man. Hey, thanks, man. Happy to be back.

25:18Malcolm Harris: Happy you're back. How's your week, then? how's the week it's a busy week it was the uh the tie user conference so i've been in chicago just got home uh yesterday but great meeting the the the new colleagues from tie and all the great customers on the tie platform but yeah a little tired but i'm doing all right doing all right that's awesome he was up late last night you had the chanticleers didn't you i knew i was on with you guys this morning so i couldn't uh look too rough you were just watching all that money go out, you're like, God, 24 points. What is going on here? You know, Malcolm, you're a big sports guy, right?

25:58Huge, man. Come on. Huge sports guy. My man here is, he's an Ohio Bobcat. He's an Ohio Bobcat. He is. You know, from Athens, Athens, Ohio. You know the story of the mascot, the Bobcat mascot. I've got it here, dude. A lot of people, they blamed it on this dude named Brandon Hanning. Supposedly, the story is Brandon Hanning is 19 years old. He tries out to be Rufus the Bobcat, right? Which I don't know why his name is Rufus, but it's Rufus the Bobcat. Okay? That's what they say his name is. His number one goal the whole time is to tackle Brutus Buckeye in Ohio State Stadium. He knew this was going to happen like two years later that they were going to play at Ohio State.

26:44So his main, his only reason for trying out is to do this, right? He gets on there. He does it on national TV. Look, check this. No, he, oh, we have footage of this happening. This is 100 % real. Takes his ass out right there at midfield with the flag. Look, they take him down. Look, watch this. No, if we got the rest of this. Look, the team comes out. He gets him again in the tricky half. Oh, no. Oh, wow.

27:09Malcolm Harris: Spit out. Right? They kick his ass. Look, they kick him out of school. They ban him from all future events. He had already quit the school and left and went to Hocking College, right? I have evidence that it really wasn't Branding Hanning. Check out this picture here. I think Cody did some investigating work for me. Oh, my gosh. It was Andrew Weimer. Oh, my goodness. Can't call me out like that. I just had to bring respect back to the hand. back to the Hanning family. Cody, you're banned from using AI tools. All right, we're going to get sued for defamation of character. This is something. Yeah, wow.

27:56Malcolm Harris: Wow. Okay, first and before we get to why we're here, why as a football player, if you're seeing that, would you not intervene? They just ran right past Brutus. Like if we're looking at this footage again, guys, all right, so he's going out here. He's going to take. All right. And then the hit. Bam. All right. Good form. He led with the shoulder. That was nice. But then you got football players running. They just did nothing. No smoke for him. Nothing. And look at this. They did nothing. They ran right past him like, yeah, we don't like that prick anyway. This is sick. Okay. I didn't do that darn thing.

28:29Malcolm Harris: You know what? We like Andrew. He's got that dog in him, all right? He's got that dog in him. Yeah. What's the? it feels like that video is ai and there's a there's a question i want to ask no it's not that that's actually real video that's real that's real that's real yeah the video you guys show too right listen yeah it's visibility at its finest andrew let's let's talk about visibility all right because when we talk about freight visibility today what has changed about what shippers carriers brokers are actually expecting to see versus what they're actually seeing when it comes to their visibility tools, man.

29:06I love your segues, man. Come on, man. I'm a professional.

29:09Malcolm Harris: I'm a professional. I'm just Magic Johnson, you know? Hey, one of us has to get the job done, bro.

29:19All right. Yeah. So visibility. You know, it's been around for decades now, right? It's always been, where's my truck? And where's the load? Where's the freight? And it's definitely expanded. that's still essential, don't get me wrong. You need to know where your freight is, where your truck is. But it's also important that you're getting deep data, meaning accurate continuity of data across the entire shipment so you know that there are no gaps in tracking. But there's a key component that I think has been downplayed or ignored over the last several years, which is ELDs being the silver bullet to tracking, to visibility, to fraud protection, and just cutting the drivers out of the equation for successful tracking.

30:10And there's this massive network of millions of drivers that are very good drivers, that are reliable drivers, that are safe drivers, that when they're removed from visibility, they don't have the ability to help validate they're actually getting offloaded or communicating with the customer saying, hey, I'm at the dock, I'm getting off load, or I need a pickup number, or taking pictures of lump of receipts or PODs to help expedite the time to cash. That had been removed from the workflow as visibility evolved to ELD only or ELD as the only option that customers and brokers specifically wanted to go down.

30:52And it's coming back to saying, hey, we need to bring the drivers back into the equation. We need to leverage the ELDs along with the app and within the driver community so that we can have the most robust data set possible and improve our time to cash, meaning getting those PODs from those drivers immediately so that we can invoice our customers and have a healthy cash flow business. So now you've got basically two different lines of data, if you will, right? Coming into the scene, right? So it seems like immediately that would be easier, but in a lot of cases, this is actually not. You need somebody to figure out because now you've got kind of this vortex issue where you actually may think you got fewer blind spots, but if you're not looking at the data and looking at it correctly, you may actually have more, right?

31:50So interpretation of those two different data streams is pretty important or the ability to do that, the bandwidth, right? Yeah. So what we've done, we've rolled out a feature called ELD Plus where we're combining the two data sources together. We're saying, hey, we're going to track the ELD, the truck, along with the mobile app and the driver so that you can see, one, have continuity of the tracking session. Say, all right, I have two data points. They should be telling the same story. They should be going down the road together. if there's a gap in connectivity or signal or for whatever reason there's an issue with one of the devices, the other one's still picking up data and fulfilling any gaps in visibility so you're able to have good customer service for your shippers and meet your compliance metrics and scorecards, etc.

32:36But they also tell a good story around maybe suspicious behavior or some of them might need to be investigated more. where you're like, hey, if the truck and the driver aren't going together, what's happening? Did we have the wrong driver information? Do we have the wrong phone number or truck number? And one's going north and one's going south. Did they swap out a yard and you're not tracking the right unit? Or is there potentially some fraudulent activity? There's spoofing of both ELDs and of the mobile app across any platform has been known over the last year or so, having multiple signals to help validate fraud and give you more data to then go out and talk to carriers is very important.

33:20And that all exposes that.

33:23Malcolm Harris: Andrew, what I think is really cool and very fascinating, rather, is you're not necessarily just replacing the first signal. You're adding another independent signal and component. Why is that distinction important, kind of based off of what you just said? Yeah, it's not just getting double data. Some customers think that's great. Some brokers think that's great. but it's one, you have the fraud component, right? That thing is a, that resonates very well. Again, truck and driver should be telling the same story, moving down the highway together. They go separate ways, signals go different directions.

33:55That should have set off an alert in an operational workflow to call and investigate, hey, what's going on? You know, it's not guaranteeing fraud, but just say, hey, something odd's going on, something suspicious is going on. Let's get after it before it's too late. But in, you know, outside of fraud and back to what I was talking about before, there's this whole carrier driver community that wants to help accelerate and improve customer service for their brokers and for their shippers. whether that's validating that they've actually checked in and arrived, whether that is updating how many pieces were offloaded and what the actual weight was or who signed for the bail or uploading their documents in an automated way so that they're not getting chased down or dispatchers aren't getting blown up asking for PODs a week later down the road.

34:41Also to expedite their ability to get paid. Communication, that's a simple thing that people take for granted. But if you're going directly to just a truck or just an ELD, you remove the ability to communicate to a driver in a method that they're used to communicating with, which is the macro plane app. And say, hey, I'm at the facility. No one's here. Hey, what doctor do I need to go to again? Or hey, they're saying they're going to load me with 10 pallets, but the rate constant is 15. I want to make sure everything's good. All that's removed if you're only going to the ELD and you're cutting out the driver.

35:14So being able to combine those sources together outside of just going down the highway together and telling the same story, you're really accelerating and improving the whole operational experience, the whole customer service experience, potentially minimizing detention time where a driver is stuck at a facility. And also, again, expending your time to cash with being able to collect documents and invoice your customers quickly.

35:40So you're going through all these different things. Walk me through exactly how this works as a redundant source of data and security. Can you walk me through that? Like what happens when one stops and this ELD Plus picks up? So ELD Plus just starts off the bat. There's nothing a customer needs to do. So historically, we have an integration. I'll just use our tie, our new acquisition. you know when a broker who leverages tie needs to initiate macro point they have driver information in tie phone number truck number trailer number that's sent over automatically to macro point to initiate tracking you know behind the scenes macro point says okay here's the carrier do they have an ELD connection uh yep they do all right track the truck or they have a trailer gps connection track the trailer or they don't have any connection track the cell phone number today with ELD plus that whole pick the optimal identifier to track is gone.

36:40And we just track it all at the same time. We track the truck, the trailer, the phone number, whatever is sent over by the broker from the TMS that they're utilizing. We're not picking one value to track and that being the only one to track. We're tracking them all. And we're tracking them all in a single session. We're sending it all back to the TMS. So again, if for whatever reason the driver's app, he closes or turns off his phone or deletes the app, we're still tracking the ELD. If for whatever reason, XYZ ELD provider has an outage with their API and you can't get data, well, we have the app to sell track too.

37:13Or if everything's connecting as expected, like normal, you're just getting supplemental data and you're getting double the amount of updates that you normally get because you're getting multiple identifiers tracking at the same time. But from a user, they're not having to do anything. It's all just happening automatically. Let me ask you this one real quick, Mel, because this is a very tactical and specific question. It's something that happens, and it gets to be a big deal. It's a big deal if it happens to you, where somebody sells you team service and it's only solo. Seems to me I could use this to discover that.

37:49Am I correct? Oh, yeah. Then you'd have to have three lines of communication, correct? I mean, am I wrong? People do that. They'll put in multiple phone numbers on a single session or on a single load and see, hey, there's one just sitting in Chicago and the other one's heading south. They're not moving together. That definitely happens for sure. I've sat in the broker seat before, too, and I've had that same question. They're just one driver. They share the same phone number. It's like, okay, no, no, no. Give me both drivers' phone numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I got you. I mean, it's a simple thing.

38:25It's not all that sophisticated, but it is a scam that they do. It happens. It happens. For sure. Or it's on the road for sure, and it's moving along with a train.

38:36Malcolm Harris: Right? Yeah, exactly. Andrew, for a transportation team, right, they're managing thousands of shipments. I mean, Enterprise Level Shipper, for example. How do you keep adding these visibility tools without necessarily adding a bunch to like a workflow or more complexity that takes away from getting the job done? How do you kind of balance the two, if you understand my question? From interpreting it, like how do we, from a software provider or vendor, help make it easy for our customers to implement new features that we roll out? Is that what you're? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So like I mentioned before, I'll continue to use the tie example.

39:17We don't want to add complexity to what a software like a TMS has to send to MacroPoint to take advantage of additional features. We want to handle that within the application ourselves. So again, the TMS, and this is for all the TMSs out there, they send us all the driver information that a broker puts into a shipment, it's on MacroPoint then to optimize that and build the workflows around it to pick the appropriate identifier that provides the best data or now just deploy functionality that combines all those data sources into one. But again, the TMSs don't need to do anything. They send us the driver information, then we handle it all within MacroPoint.

39:59So my point of this, and to answer your question, is that when we think about new features that we roll out to customers and think about our partners, specifically the TMS partners. We don't want to add complexity to the integration. We're a software company. We understand roadmaps. We understand prioritizing partners, new features and new enhancements that they wanted to play out to make their customers successful. They rely on our TMSs. We understand that too with Macrofin and the TMS partners that we work with too. We can't put that burden on them. So we try to take on as much of that responsibility in-house, optimize the workflows within our platform specifically so that customers don't need the TMS to do anything additional to reap the value from it.

40:43Fantastic. So you answered like how, you know, you're constantly contacting both, you know, both. ELD Plus is on the move immediately, right? It's not like one fails and the other one kicks in. They're in there. What does your network look like in total? Because sometimes that connection fails and there's just no connection. So you know what I'm saying? And then you're not tracking. What does your network look, what does your reliability in your network look like as opposed to others? Yeah, so, I mean, MacroPoint, we've been around now 15 years, I think, is we're in year 15 or year 16 at this point.

41:26So we've been building a driver network for, let's just say, two decades. So we're talking millions of drivers that are unique drivers that are on the network with their cell phones that are ready to track. Yeah. The ratings are out there in the app stores. The download counts are out there. Like none of that needs to be disclosed. Like you can go out there and find that yourself on the Google Play or App Store. Right. And then take with that, it's okay. You have millions of drivers that already have the app installed, that utilize it every single day, that use it as their trusted source for tracking.

41:56Then you layer on hundreds of thousands of fleets that have integrated their ELDs in the macro point. And we've been working on that for now. I think we're in year nine of ELD tracking. So we've built out this massive network that they can combine together. And I think an important component to that is, you know, that I think may be taken for granted in the industry is partnerships with telematics providers, too. So we've been very strategic and thoughtful of how we work with ELD providers and telematics providers. You know, we have over 500 of them now connected globally. The last thing we want to do is, you know, have an issue with a provider or an ELD vendor where it's not mutually beneficial for us both to be working together.

42:40And then all of a sudden connectivity breaks because of a dispute. And then you as a broker no longer can get ELD tracking from that carrier. I know we've been very thoughtful with how we engage with our providers, our partners, ensure that we have fair and mutually beneficial agreements with everyone so that you can take full advantage of this network.

43:01Malcolm Harris: Andrew, if I'm a carrier broker and I'm listening to this and I'm saying, all right, yeah, like we do, in fact, have visibility, but there are still gaps. What's the first thing you and the team at Descartes would really reiterate to those folks listening today? Okay. Reiterate, first thing would be ensuring that you are working with your brokers on the floor to get full driver information. That's our biggest gap saying, oh, you know, I'm trying to quickly, you know, dispatch a shipment or send out Raycon in my TMS. I'm just gonna get the phone number. I'm just gonna get a truck number or like, you know, I was a broker too, like, and I had to get through and dispatch out loads.

43:37And I put NA or null for driver information, just so I could dispatch my way through the shipment to execute that Raycon. getting accurate and good driver information at TMS is still the biggest biggest hurdle that I see our customers have ensuring that you know the reps on the floor themselves understand the value understand the impact when it comes to earning new shipper business as a broker being able to provide good customer service it starts with a good phone number it starts with a good truck number or trailer number in the TMS so that then we have something accurate to track against

44:07Malcolm Harris: Andrew Weimer with Daycar Andrew thank you so much for being here thanks to the team for all you guys do for us here at Freight Waves and What the Truck as well, brother. All right. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Peace and love, brother. Thank you guys so much for listening in today. Before we get out of here, let's look at the road ahead for Monday because we go from one sponsor to the next, all right? We had Descartes on today. And then, of course, Monday, we're going to be joined by Cooner Fleet Management Solutions, none other than Mr. Bill Cooper. All right. He is the Vice President of Sales at Cooner Fleet Management Solutions.

44:36Malcolm Harris: We're going to talk all with Bill about a lot that they have going on at Cooner. That's it for us. For myself, Malcolm Harris here in Chattanooga. For Michael Vincent out in Texas. Oh, speaking of Texas, hook them. Just kidding. Horns down to the ground. Vols by 100. I'll see you on Monday. Victory Monday. Go Vols. See you. Peace and love. Peace and love.

45:01Peace and love.

45:22We'll see you next time.