Why "Traditional" Load Boards Are Dead And How AI "Agents" Are Replacing Them

0:27Welcome to the podcast.

0:30Malcolm: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a Wednesday edition of What the Truck. I'm your host, Malcolm Harris. Of course, joined by my partner in crime, Mr. Michael Vincent. Mike, what is up, brother? You know what? You cannot wear us down, bro. Every day, every time, bringing the energy, bringing the heat. And you've been doing this for how long, man? A year? A year today, my boy. We're officially on anniversary watch. It's a good day, man. I appreciate everybody, the Bowler Room boys. Of course, Jess, the entire team here at Firecrown for having me. Mr. Craig Fuller, you name it. I appreciate everybody.

1:09Malcolm: I'm excited for today's show, bro. And I love you. I think this is my seventh or eighth year with the brief hiatus. No, no, no, for sure. You're definitely a senior tenured member of the Firecrown family. Oh, man. How you doing, bro? I'm doing fantastic, man. September. I told you before, football in the air. I am ready to go. Driver Appreciation Month. It's awesome, bro. I appreciate drivers slightly more than I appreciate you, and I appreciate you a whole lot, bro. You know what I'm saying? I appreciate you, too, and it is September. It's not the 21st night. It's technically going to be the second night of September.

1:50We're not getting any earth, wind, and fire out of you. Do you remember?

1:54Malcolm: I mean, there we are. That boy has the voice of an angel, man. You do. And you just got over, like, COVID and some shit. I mean, I had something, man. They tried to take me down, but guess what? I rose like a phoenix from the ashes. Ooh, yeah. Nicely done, bro. Now I'm here. Yeah. I'm ready to go. Real quick, because I know we can't do news. Two questions. Will Mendoza be a franchise quarterback? Sure. And two, did DeSantis do the right move in kicking flock cameras out at Florida? I'm going to say yes and yes. Yes and yes. I'm 100 % with you. 100 % with you. Our boy Eric Williams at Beagle.ai does not believe in Mendoza.

2:37Of course, I think he's biased, but I think he's wrong.

2:40Malcolm: Yeah, he's got a great body of work, got a Heisman Trophy, National Championship, undefeated season, 16-0. And then with flat cameras, man, this is an issue. We got to kind of hit the pause breaks before we can, you know, really get into this. Yeah, bro. Yes. Come on. I agree. And I really don't agree normally with DeSantis. So that's kind of saying something if I agree with him. So there you are. Sometimes, sometimes people, you just got to go with the logic. No, for sure. We got to go with the people today because we got a jam-packed episode. We got no headlines today, but on deck, we got four great guests that I want to get into.

3:10Malcolm: All right. So the first one is going to be Rusty Kirby. He's a VP of transportation and logistics at Pilot Flying J. He's going to join us again for Driver Appreciation Month, which is now, of course, here in September. We're talking about the return of the Road Warrior contest. I'm talking$50 ,000 in cash, a grand prize with a custom Kenworth built by the Diesel Brothers. All right, I'm talking about real appreciation of what it means for the drivers here in 2026. And then coming back to the show is Mr. Nate Vey. We're talking the data behind it, man. I'm talking 104 World Cup matches, talking all about the study that they did from the data behind that.

3:46Malcolm: And two cities specifically, Kansas City as well as ATL, my hometown. I wanted to get into those. They could not be polar opposites, and Nate's going to break it down for us. And then Sean DeHaan, he is the VP of Strategy and Corporate Development at ChuckStop.com. Man, Sean, he was watching the show the other day, commented on something about some data. We're going to get into it. I liked his point to the point where I wanted him to be on the show to talk about it. All right, so he's representing the good folks at ChuckStop.com. And then finally, the CEO of MyoVision, Mr. Curtis McBride, is going to be on the show, closing it out with us talking traffic studies their new ai assistant mateo and much more all right so between curtis as well sean nate and rusty we're gonna get to it this is about to be live and a full effect the fastest 45 plus minutes in freight we're gonna speed through this one and it would not be possible of course without our new sponsors of the month we're gonna double down on sponsors for the month of september let's do it man double double dipping double dipping all right The first one is going to be presented, of course, by Descartes, all right?

4:52Malcolm: This segment is brought to you by Descartes, introducing Descartes MacroPoints ELD +, a new dual-source tracking capability that combines ELD and mobile app tracking in one session, all right? You can spot discrepancies sooner, capture proof of delivery, and gain greater confidence in every single load. Learn more right now at Descartes.com. Again, Descartes, that is our title sponsor. Thank you all so much. and then back because they seem to be fans of what the truck and i appreciate that they are cooner cooner fleet management solutions is in the building again a truck that is not moving is not making any money all right every breakdown means lost revenue misloads driver downtime and added pressure on your business that's why fleets across north america trust cooner fleet management solutions for mobile maintenance preventative service dlt inspections and nationwide repair support.

5:44Malcolm: Cooner's tailored services help maximize revenue by keeping trucks moving, drivers earning, and freight on schedule. Visit CoonerFMS.com slash with a truck for your complimentary fleet maintenance review. Again, that is Cooner Fleet Management Solutions. And then last but not least, it's on the way. Get your tickets October 27th and the 28th for the Future of Freight Festival. I am talking F3 coming to you fast right now. All right, in just about a little over eight weeks it is the biggest event in freight in supply chain it is the future of freight festival located at the signal here in chattanooga tennessee i know that guy that's malcolm harris man and i know a bunch of people at three mr michael vince i know every guy in there yeah yeah no this b-roll is absolutely outstanding and it is going to be awesome you're going to see that set and you're going to see much more you're going to see brake check you're going to have conversations with different folks.

6:41Malcolm: You're going to see the lizard that's on that shirt. You're also going to see the mascot. You're probably going to see Craig Fuller. You're going to see Adam Wingfield. You're going to see, I'm hoping, the Truck Parking Club is going to be there. Hopefully some live music, some rigs are going to be out there. You'll see Craig Fuller right there. There it is. You'll see it. We got it going on. Will you see Craig Fuller and the lizard at the same time? That's the question. I highly doubt it. I highly doubt it, man. It's going to be in a great time. A golf simulator is going to be in the building.

7:07Malcolm: We're going to have demos we're gonna have keynotes we're gonna have charles gracie and the armchair attorney and we're going to have all the things man october 27th and the 28th again it is going to be the event of the year tickets are on sale right now use the promo code it is take 20 t-a-k-e-2-0 for your opportunity to get 20 off of admission wall supplies last tickets are going fast and furious i'm not vin diesel but i do it for the family make sure that you get your tickets right now again the future Freight Festival located, again, the Signal, October 27th and the 28th. All right. Michael Vincent, are you ready to go?

7:42You can take that 20 that you saved and meet Malcolm and I at Chattanooga Whiskey. We're going to have to spend it.

7:49Malcolm: Yeah, we'll help you out and get some whiskey tasting. Right on. I'm ready to go, man. Let's make this happen. We got a great show. Let's get it going. Let's get it going. All right. Because coming out of Knoxville, Tennessee. All right. We got the Vols kicking off here in a couple of days against Furman. but we're going to cut this one off early. All right, because who is Deshaun Bishop when you got a running back like Rusty Kirby toting the rock for a pilot? All right, again, introducing the VP of Transportation and logistics at Pilot Flying J. We got none other than Mr. Rusty Kirby. Rusty, welcome to What the Truck, brother.

8:24Malcolm: Happy Monday and happy start to September, bro. Good morning, Malcolm, Mike. Thanks for having me on. Right up the road. What is up? What is up, Rusty? Are you going to take your 20 and me to stop and tell you the whiskey? I appreciate this out. My 40 times is not what it was. Your 40 times is not what it was. I think you're full of crap. I think you're at least 4 '4", 4 '5". Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're working on it. Make it back to fighting shape here pretty soon. 4 '4". He's faster than ever is what he is, man. Isn't it amazing how far the ground gets away from you the older you get? It's unbelievable.

9:02Yeah. Yeah, every step could be your last, right? I got a question for you. So should Carter be playing? Should he be playing the first game or not? You did see this headline, right? We got this headline, Cody? Where's that headline? There it is. What is that? Is that you, Rusty, handing him that ticket? That's me. That's me. You know what? I don't know what you're supposed to call him. Whatever gives us the best chance to win, I mean, it's Furman, but never underestimate your opponent. I mean, what a penalty. He's not allowed to play against Furman.

9:44Malcolm: Not allowed to play against Furman, but we can have NFL players come back and play for LSU and it's fine, right? No, I mean, here's the thing. You can't do exactly what you're supposed to do and play against Furman. You're not allowed to do that, right? I mean, is that what it is? Is it like he did it the right way, therefore, you know what I mean? What the hell is that crap? Anyway. It seems pretty heavy-handed, I got to say. I got to say. Good kid. Want to see him on the field, right? Oh, yeah. He did it, and he did it the right way, bro. He did, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Go ahead, Mike.

10:24I was just going to transition you, bro. Talk about good players on the field. We got a bunch on the road.

10:32Malcolm: I like that. I like that. You know, we do got a bunch on the road. September, of course, is driver appreciation month. Right. And you all, I think, celebrated better than any organization out, you know, for you, Rusty and the rest of Pilot Flying J. Why is it so important? And then we're going to, of course, get into the details of this huge contest that you guys throw every year. But why is it so important for you all, Rusty? Well, you know, we appreciate drivers year round. I mean, definitely the lifeblood of our business, our industry, but I would say the lifeblood of the entire country. I heard an interesting stat, something like 350 million Americans, 3.5 million drivers.

11:14So if you think about it, for every 100 of us, there's a driver supporting everything that we require, right? From the essentials to the things that are nice to have, construction, waste, everything. So it's an important time, I think, to just focus and make sure that the message is heard by everyone across the country, how important drivers are to their quality, their standard of living.

11:36Malcolm: For sure. Yeah, not just when there's a national crisis. It needs to quit being this wave of respect and then they forget about them and so on and so forth. I agree with you 100%, man. Can we just not hold them in high regard because they're awesome and quit with the safety crap? I mean, we need to have safety, safe drivers, and we need to be safe on the road. But it seems like everybody thinks they're the worst. They're not. It's the safest demographic on the road, bro. They're the safest drivers on the road. What is it, like 83 % of the crashes are caused by the car, not the truck? Not the truck.

12:12Because of disrespect, bro. It's crazy. Speaking of trucks, you guys are giving one away to somebody, aren't you? That's right. That's right. One lucky entry will receive our Road Warrior Grand Prize this year, which is a new Kenworth truck modified by the Diesel Brothers and an extra$50 ,000 in cash, because why not? A little extra cash does not hurt. But I've seen images of the truck. It's a really nice truck. I think our grand prize winner will be thrilled.

12:45Malcolm: Now, walk us through the first time this happened, because I remember the first few episodes last year. I mean, the response was absolutely incredible. When we were talking about the Diesel Brothers and seeing the images of the truck, it was crazy. How did it go the first time around, Rusty? Well, I saw the... I actually just rewatched the video last year of our winner, Stacy Batiste, and we caught him at a travel center in Baytown, of course, a pilot. His family was there, complete surprise. Really, really just an amazing thing to see and such a deserving winner as well. So I would say if we can recreate that moment, it'll be, of course, well worth it.

13:26Malcolm: I agree. So the driver has no clue. How do they enter the contest? What's the Road Warrior contest? How does that work? Yeah, we're taking nominations. So you can get on pilotcompany.com forward slash Road Warrior. That's Road-Warrior. I'm sure you can probably just Google Road Warrior and Pilot as well and get the page. But we're taking nominations now through the 18th of this month, after which the nominees will be reviewed and we will select a winner. We're looking for someone, obviously, running a lot of miles, a lot of experience, a lot of safe miles. Very, very important for us. We know that drivers work constantly, so it's difficult.

14:08But, you know, a record of giving back to the community is also something that we value quite a bit. We love to recognize veterans. is not a requirement, but all of our past winners have been veterans as well. So I think, you know, there's so many good people out the road, right? It's going to be difficult to select ultimately, but we're looking for a nomination. So please get on there. If it's someone in your family, someone you work with, if it's you and you want to have someone else nominate you, get that, give that nudge out to them. But we would love to have a big pool of folks to select from.

14:39Malcolm: No, for sure. Now, beyond this contest, which is incredible, and of course, we'll get the details on this on the episode. What else are you guys doing for the month of September when it comes to supporting drivers? I mean, you guys do it year-round, but you guys have reward programs and different things that are unlike anything else I'm seeing from different organizations. It's really cool. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned year-round, right? We always want to make sure that we've got a great, clean stop for drivers. We've got friendly people, things that drivers need coming off the road. We do do a very aggressive points program, Push for Points.

15:11Push for Points Elite is a newer adjustment to that program. So if a driver fuels 1 ,200 gallons in the course of the month, they will achieve that Elite status. They do need to go on into the app and then sort of inaugurate that, kick that off in the app itself. But instead of resetting at the beginning of the next month, they will keep that Elite status for the following month. So, you know, chance to earn four times points. very generous and we don't want them to feel like they gain something, they lose it quickly. So this will be something that extends to the subsequent month as well. Nice.

15:45That's really unbelievable. So we go out there and talk to drivers quite a bit and, and try to understand what they're talking to them and not about them. Right. We do a lot of talking about them. You guys understand quite a bit about what the truckers, what are you guys hearing from the drivers right now about what do they need or what they want from truck stops and the industry at large? Yeah, well, you know, we operate a good-sized fleet, so we talk to our drivers all the time. Maybe a bit of a different application than a lot of our customers. These guys are home daily, working day caps, but we feel like we get a good sense of what they want.

16:23They want some consistency, predictability. Really hard to maintain in this profession, right? We know that things like truck parking is our challenge. either something like hours wasted each day, week looking for a place to park. So we offer a lot of parking spaces, 900 travel centers, as many as 250 plus parking places at the travel centers. We also make it easy for drivers to select prime parking should they choose that. And then I would say just having a place that can get off the road, get what they need, reset and get going again. That's what drivers really need and look for. And that little bit of predictability, right?

17:06We all know what it's like to wait for a load, to deal with shippers, receivers, and understand that you can't always control what happens, you know, one moment to the next. But that little bit of control, having a place to get off the road is really important for us and important for them.

17:20Malcolm: No, for sure. This industry is, you know, very robust. I mean, the world does not move without trucking, but it seems like the world doesn't understand trucking. So my question for you, Rusty, is what is something that you want people outside of the industry to really know when it comes to these drivers and just what they give to the industry and really to the society itself? Yeah, well, it's funny, right? They're so visible in the sense we see trucks every day. If you're anywhere near an interstate highway, you see trucks, but they're also kind of invisible. So for most folks, if you're not in the industry, you're not aware really of what it is they do, it starts to look like something that maybe makes your traffic, your commute a little more difficult, right?

18:03But what's inside those trucks we all know is critical. And if it were to stop or slow down, that would affect every single man, woman, child in the country, right, across the continent, across the world really. So it becomes – it's so common that I think we overlook it. That's why it's important to take a moment and try to get the word out, you know, this month, our appreciation week, as much as possible, really, what it is that they actually do for us.

18:31Malcolm: Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, with this, just want to say again, thank you guys for all you all are doing at Pilot Flying J. Again, Rusty Kirby, the VP of Transportation and Logistics. And final thing before we get you out of here for our next guest, do you have a score prediction on Rocky top for our 50 balls taking on the mighty, mighty folks at Furman. I've seen a few predictions around the office. They got some pools running, I think somewhere in the upper 50s. Yeah, 50 plus is kind of Heupel's record here. I think Furman gets some points on the board, a couple of field goals. I'll say 56 to 6.

19:10Malcolm: 56 to 6. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. Rusty, we appreciate you. And as always, you're always welcome back to the show anytime. Thanks, you guys. Really appreciate Freight Waves. Great publication. I read it every day. Thank you. Thank you so much, man. Again, Rusty with Brian J. Yeah, I can see that happening, by the way. 100%. I don't know. I'm going to go 56-15 just because Carter's not going to be on the field, bro. Yeah, I mean, Arianne Carter is a great dude. Shout out to his brother. He actually works at Axel Logistics. My man, Charles Fitzpatrick. He is one of the hardest working men in logistics.

19:44Malcolm: Charlie, I see you. Look at you. Yeah, come on, man. I got to show my brother some love. Now, with that, the AVP of business development at Altitude is back, man. I enjoyed our conversation the first time. Let's just double down on it. Right now, we got Mr. Nate Vey. Nate, we're now officially on What the Truck with you. What's happening, brother? Nice shirt. Look at you, man. You know, I heard this is when you were in a grocery and you were in linen, so I figured I'd try to match it. Golly, you look good, boy. How you doing? I'm good, man. I'm good. How you doing? feeling good looking good you know ready for the show glad to be back on uh after hearing rusty's talk there i was thinking about giving up data and analytics and becoming a truck driver so i can get that big rig so

20:29well i'm telling you that big rig in 50k that's big rig in 50k is pretty good bro you know what i'm saying that's that's if i had that kind of money i could dress like you guys just saying yeah we also appreciate all the the drivers out there work with them every single day too so driver appreciation week coming up um definitely big fans of that too so glad to to be part of that team unbelievable brother unbelievable now you used to used to play uh you used to play hide and hide and seek didn't you weren't you a big hide and seek guy I don't know. Do we have that report from him trying to win?

21:10There it is right there. Oh, from ESPN. Dead last in the global high. You know, somebody associated with Geotab probably not going to do well in hide and seek, bro, because they're going to find you quick. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, we got the trackers on. I'm not going to say where. Yeah, we got the trackers. Not the best game plan, my friend. No, definitely try to avoid that game at all costs for myself. There you go, brother. You ever watch that on pro on ESPN? What's it on? Ocho or whatever. The Ocho, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or no, it's tag. I guess it's not hide and seek, but the tag with the running around inside there.

21:51It's insane. Yeah. Let's talk World Cup, bro.

21:54Malcolm: Let's talk World Cup in the games because you guys analyze what vehicle activity across 104 tournament matches. Whenever you guys started this, I mean, it was crazy. We kind of went through the list of cities and you shocked us with some of like the data points. But what was the overarching theme of some stuff you talked about? I want to kind of go through line item by line item with some questions that we have. But what was, first off, the overarching theme from your just incredible study, Nate? Yeah, I appreciate that. So we used all of the commercial vehicle data that we have at Geotab, the six million plus vehicles to understand and analyze the 104 World Cup matches across 16 different cities.

22:34So we did that on every single game day. But in addition to that, we looked at baseline traffic performance for three days of that same week and the same timeframe, just to get an understanding of what normal vehicle activity looks like. So our goal and intention was to understand pre traffic, during match traffic, and then post traffic once the match ended. Just to understand how the logistics are working of getting people and goods into the event, in and around it, and then also exiting the event too. So that was really the basis for it. The overarching theme was getting to the event wasn't that bad.

23:11Activity levels stayed kind of the same. We looked at volumes of vehicles, harsh braking events, average speeds, and things of that nature in and around like a three-mile radius and sometimes greater than that. But really what stuck out to us was the impact that the post-event match actually had the people and the goods actually trying to exit the venue all at once. This was really where the network stress had the biggest impact. And we found some really interesting insights on that, which I'm happy to talk to if you have any specific questions.

23:40Malcolm: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's interesting because, yeah, I mean, I want to understand exactly what you saw, but then how that applies. Because, I mean, you didn't do this just because you're interested and it seems like, oh, this is cool to do. I mean, there's obviously a plan here on proving a concept and what can go on. I would imagine that, you know, the lead up to the event is multiples of hours of things flowing in. But then you've got everybody sitting at a starting gate that just suddenly opens at the end of the game, right? And that's kind of it, right? That valve just, boom, there's just deluge of stuff that doesn't necessarily happen at the beginning.

24:20Which is really, really interesting. That's really interesting. think. But so what specifically did you guys see in that three mile? Yeah. So across the 104 matches that we analyzed, within a three mile radius, that was the biggest hit for in and around the arenas. And the volumes of activity of vehicles, once that event was done, typically within the first 30 to 60 minutes was the most congested. And there was a 20 % increase in volumes of vehicles that we noted. But what was most kind of significant that really stood out to me was the harsh braking. So we get like a lot of harsh braking data from our connected vehicles as well.

24:58That was up 42 % after the event. So more vehicles, more potential incidents, probably people are trying to figure out, navigate the city without fully knowing exactly like where to go, how to get there. There's new like deviations and routes. And then obviously speeds dropped down. So we saw speeds drop by only 4%. So not a huge drop in that but really the biggest thing that stood out was the vehicle activity increase across pretty much every single um arena within a three mile radius sometimes up to 13 depending upon the the city and the harsh break and increase to 42 percent um on average across all all 16 cities

25:36Malcolm: nate talk to me about the vehicle increase across the 16 cities because it was a what a 20 percent kind of generally around now was that when final whistle happens or is this kind of daring or i I mean, what does that look like in terms of like the sports aspect? Yeah, that's absolutely when the final whistle blows is when you start seeing the level of congestion, the activity of the volumes go up. So multiple people trying to get out, you know, vendors that are there also trying to get out as well that have the commercial vehicles, which we kind of track and chase there. So in general, it was across the board.

26:11And then there's a couple of cities, I think you mentioned, Malcolm, that were really interesting to me, like polar opposites almost as well. And so I'm happy to talk about those two. I think it was Kansas City and Atlanta, which are the ones that you were most interested in.

26:23Malcolm: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. When it comes to Kansas City versus Atlanta, I was looking at this because Kansas City, I mean, I saw the salt vehicle activity jump 91 % within five kilometers of the stadium with a harsh braking increase at 173%, whereas Atlanta only saw a 4 % increase. like what was Atlanta doing differently versus Kansas City? Because this is, this is crazy. I got some guesses. I got some guesses. Yeah. Mike, why don't you go ahead and guess and I'll, I'll see if, if you're right. Okay. I, I, well, I don't know what aspects you really looked at besides hard data, but I would imagine that the Atlanta driver is a bit more experienced with this kind of nonsense than the Casey driver is.

27:09And that, that'd be one of one of my guesses. So it'd be less hard breaking and that type of stuff too. the other thing I would look at is the infrastructure, but also, I mean, because Atlanta, how can you hard break when you can only drive five miles an hour anyway? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it'd be more like how many times did you get to hit the accelerators more, more than just to get Atlanta. True. You're right on the, right down the track there for sure. Like biggest thing is, is probably like the baseline didn't increase too much for Atlanta. So there's normal kind of activity for them.

27:45The actual urban versus more suburban, so obviously very urban in Atlanta. But the biggest thing to me, which I think I'd have to probably cross-check with Atlanta themselves, is the public transit and actually being able to facilitate people in and out with actually getting into a vehicle. So you may not always need to get in a vehicle in order to leave the facilities. Whereas Kansas City, there's not a lot of whole public transportation or other methods of getting in and out of that. So there's a whole bunch of suburban homes in and around that region. Everybody's trying to leave. So vehicle activity gets up.

28:17You're not used to that kind of congestion. You're going to natively start slamming on your brakes a little bit more because you're just not used to it. So right on track, kind of with your initial thoughts. That's like a 69-yard field goal, Malcolm. You know what I'm saying? I like where your head's at. Blindfolded. I like where your head's at, Malcolm. It's a very hard one. Essentially what he's telling us, Malcolm, is we ought to just sit in the stadium and enjoy those last couple of dogs in a brew. Absolutely. Because we got 20, 30 minutes to just kill. We got to do the 999. 30 to 60. Yeah, I'll give it 30 to 60.

28:54I got to hang with my brother and have a few beers for 60 minutes. That's cool with me. That's cool with me, too.

29:00Malcolm: That's cool with me, too. I'm good. Then we'll call an Uber, and they'll be able to get in and out in a heartbeat. They might hit the brakes a time or two, though. You know how it goes. Maybe. That's all right. That's all right. Nate, with this data, first of all, you and the team at Geotab are absolutely outstanding stuff. For real, I'm very, very, very pleased with the information that you provided to us today. If you're advising for the next event, whether it's going to be the Olympics out in LA in 2028, or whether it's going to be something different, another type of World Cup deal, with this information, what would you advise cities to do differently?

29:38Malcolm: or what would you advise cities to maintain? If you could speak to that as we close out. Yeah, definitely. So one thing I would say is definitely analyze what your city has done post-mega events. It could be large concerts. It could be NFL games. It could be World Cup matches. Just understand the bottlenecks, congestions that you guys have post-mega events. That would be the focus that I would definitely look at. Also look at your neighboring cities across the country as well. See who are performing well, what they're doing. they're always happy to kind of speak with each other to kind of give their inputs on what works what doesn't work um but then more so like it's really interesting on the la28 coming here in la like mega events like there's going to be games at end and the games that are starting exactly at the same time so being able to figure out how that's all kind of work within the network so you're not letting a bunch of people out of that bottleneck and then trying to get people somewhere else too is like understand the patterns on that and then to plan the infrastructure accordingly in order to move people and goods effectively throughout the city.

30:37So you have to use the data to do that. And then last point is like as a fleet operator, if you can't hit all costs within that 30 to 60 minute, avoid delivering goods at that point in time, trying to adjust your delivery schedules before the event, or maybe 60 to 80 minutes after that event too.

30:55Malcolm: Nate Vey, again, representing Altitude and Geotab. Mike, I cut you off. You got the floor, brother. It's quite all right, man. And I know we got to keep moving on. I was just thinking, you know, it seems to me you could predict traffic by the Vegas line on a game. Right. Like if it's if it's a closer game, then everybody's going to leave at the exact same time. But if somebody getting their ass whooped, then it kind of trickles out a little bit thinner. You know what I'm saying? I wonder what those stats are. That's something we got. This segment sponsored by FanDuel. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

31:28Malcolm: Nate, really appreciate you being here on What The Truck, brother. As always, you are welcome back to the show anytime. Definitely the next study that you guys put out, please let us know. We'll have you back here on the show. All right, brother. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Appreciate you, man. Peace, brother. As always, a good time with Mr. Nate Vey. Good conversation. He's going to go fight bulls. Looks like he's going to go fight bulls, dude. Nah, he is. He looks ready to go, man. That shirt is fantastic. It's better than this. It is. I like what I got on, but he did what he had to do. And this guy is going to do what he has to do now.

31:59Malcolm: And I want to introduce him. He is a VP of strategy and corporate development at truckstop.com. I'm going to butcher his last name. I've said it twice differently because I was unsure. So Sean, could you correct me and tell me, how do I say your last name, sir? It'd be my pleasure. Sean DeHan. DeHan is in the house. Mr. Sean. I was going to go with Krzyzewski. Okay. But didn't. You know, I did love Duke as a kid. So it would have went down. Oh, man. It's all good. You are also a Mustang and a Longhorn, which is bizarre. I think we got a – we may have a picture of that. I'm not sure. Do we have a picture of this?

32:37There it is.

32:41And what are those freight brokers chasing your ass down? That is. Yeah, I'm hearing about the feds that are behind me. No, they're supposed to be freight brokers, but, you know, AI. Yeah. I haven't seen a freight broker wear a tie in a long time, I got to be honest with you. yeah no that's yeah that is a great call out it's kind of like when craig would say that's a european truck not an american truck when you make a mistake on an article he's like yeah that's not

33:09Malcolm: that's not a real american truck i've been there guilty as charged guilty

33:19Malcolm: dude it's good to see you man i i could not help but whenever i saw on linkedin you know we had an episode a couple of days ago talking about the load board debate and kind of the innovations behind it and i saw your comment and i was like okay this this this guy he spoke and i should have brought a screenshot i'm stupid i was rushing this morning um you push back on the idea that the traditional load board is outdated what do people misunderstand about the load board today in your words brother yeah i mean i think the my you know you you click baited me on that on that headline in that video.

33:52And so I had, I had to kind of jump in from the top rope, if you will. I did, I did. I like, I couldn't help myself, I guess. But, you know, I think the way, the way that we think about load board, the truck stop is, you know, the load board is a user interface for something that is much more valuable than just, you know, the database and the, and the UI that you see today of, of carrier brokers, posting a load and carriers clicking on and doing a search, looking for loads, clicking on the load, finding the information, and then calling out on the broker. We view the load board as a broader concept.

34:28I think most people think of it as the product. We view the load board as a broader concept of a marketplace or a network and really what's under and what's delivering and what's creating the value for our customers. So the load board in many ways for us is how do we help our customers achieve the specific goals that they have using a product like a load board. The reality of the matter is that the UI that I think most people would think about as the outdated part of the UI, I think they typically are talking about a couple of things. One, they're talking about the idea of searching for a load as a carrier.

35:00So broker posts a load, carrier has to search for the load. I think the other thing that they typically are talking about is the fact that you can't transact. It's not a closed loop process. It's an open loop process. So I'll just both, I think, it's helpful to talk about both. I think, one, there is a continued evolution on the first, which is brokers are going to have to send some sort of load signal, right? I have a load. Because how is the carrier going to know you have a load if you don't tell them you have a load in some way, shape, or form? And so the load board is a great mechanism for brokers to say, hey, I have a load.

35:32For those that have capacity, let's have a conversation. And the modal or the mode of carriers searching for loads will evolve and is evolving, right? We already see it evolving on a daily basis on how our carriers look for freight, how our carriers search for freight, how our carriers set up systems and notifications within our tool and use our tool to create filters and automated pushes and different types of things that they use today. So that continues to evolve, right? And that will continue to evolve. The broker will, you know, on the demand side, right, the broker will continue to find ways to market loads and push loads into the marketplace so that they can find the capacity for the load.

36:19And obviously, you know, as we move forward, right, we think about all the ways that we can improve the ability for our customers to connect, right, and to match because the point of a marketplace is to find connection, right, secure, safe connection between two parties. And so we can talk a little about what we're doing there from how we're leveraging AI. I think AI is really kind of that next-gen big move in the network or marketplace space. Mobile apps are really big. Some of the smart intelligence that came from data science and machine learning over the last 10 years has been really important for improving the match quality, improving match frequency, and increasing signal to noise ratio.

37:02and as we go forward, AI presents a really interesting opportunity for us to continue to innovate on top of that. But as far as traditional load boards being outdated, I think there isn't really a traditional load board anymore. There are still users that are using load boards in traditional ways, but the load board as a traditional concept is sort of a a little bit of a lazy shorthand for folks that are looking at the market in such a simple way. Sean, you said a lot of things and really important things because I happen to agree with you and I've been thinking about this and discussing this with other people for quite some time.

37:42Is the traditional load board is, I think, I agree that it is an old concept and it's outdated because you guys are evolving it, right? It is changing from just what it was before because of the new technologies and because of the more load matching. I think it becomes a much more valuable tool. And I think that's what you're laying out is that strategy of how it actually is becoming much more valuable than just matching freight. Right? Or just searching for freight. It becomes a market barometer, so to speak. It becomes a marketplace where you can establish different relationships and understand what is happening in the market and also get into those specific one-on-one secure type of AI matching.

38:31And you asked, should we talk about AI? I think we absolutely should. How is AI in that matching and how are you guys using it to evolve the load board into what you're describing? Yeah. So we recently launched, well, look, the reality of the matter is AI as we know it is, you know, typically people are talking about agentic AI, right? So let's talk about that here in a second. But before that, you know, we've been using AI and machine learning in our marketplace for a very long time, particularly in the security and fraud space, right? So that's not really new for us. What has evolved over time and thanks to the progress innovation that's happened at the core kind of LLM level is the ability to deliver agentic type of AI.

39:14And so what Agentic AI really, when we launched a product called Ava, which is a carrier assistant, effectively helps carriers dispatch loads, understand the market better, right? As to your point around market barometer, what is the market like in Dayton, right? What is the market like in Chattanooga right now for a flatbed? Where should I be looking at? How should I be thinking about my week, right? There's almost this planner assistant type of dynamic you can create. Of course, this assistant or AVA, as we call the tool, can help to actually identify the right freight for you based on your context.

39:56That's one of the most important things that Gentic AI can provide us today, not in our personal life, but in our work life, is that they can understand the context that for so long we haven't been able to understand. So I'll give you an example of context. When does a driver want to be at home? When will they be at home? What markets do they like to run in? When are they delivering that next load? When will they actually be free to pick up the following load? And you can do these things with software, right? Traditional software in a lot of ways. You could create integrations to ELDs. You could send pings and ask them to update their schedules.

40:32But it was all very manual and all very cumbersome and not highly adopted by the user. But now the user has the opportunity to simply say, hey, Ava, I'm going to be in Dallas dropping off a load between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. I'm going to be parking for the evening. I'll be ready to pick up a load on Tuesday morning. Right. And now what they can do, Ava can say, well, OK, great. Where would you like to go back to? And they might say, I'm optimizing for a mile or I'm optimizing to get back home. Maybe home is Chattanooga, let's just say I'm optimizing to get back home. And what Ava can do is actually help you call down the information while you're driving.

41:09right? Particularly in a tight market or a competitive market, while you're driving, pull this information together for you, present it back to you so that you don't have to wait until you're stopped to execute and find a load. Now think about that from the broker's perspective. The broker now has all these different signals of carriers that are actively searching for a load that will really, really match that carrier, right? And so now they can actually think about pushing a load directly to that carrier and saying, hey, I understand your context. Your context has been shared with me as approved by you and we want to present this load to you.

41:40Are you interested in taking this load? And that creates this unique and distinct and very valuable experience for both the carrier and the broker.

41:49Malcolm: Now, Sean, if I'm a broker or carrier listening right now, as we come to a close with this segment, I'm still using a load board the same way I did 10 years ago. What am I missing and what do I need to be doing? Yeah. So on the carrier side, I think it is really, really important for our carriers to start testing and experimenting with how they can leverage Ava or even other agentic AI tools in their business. Because getting comfortable with that is really important for understanding how can it improve my life? How can it improve my outcomes? And so any carrier that's a TripStop customer can get access to Ava today and start using Ava.

42:31For brokers, it's actually quite interesting. The really thoughtful brokerage customers that we have, when we tell them about what we're doing on the Ava side, on the carrier side, they get really excited about it. But the next thing they do is they actually say, oh my gosh, we actually have to start doing things differently now. We have to start using truck stop differently. How do we ensure that when our load is posted, Ava is actually recommending our, would be likely to recommend our freight to the carrier, right? And so that actually changes posting behavior, right? It actually changes what brokers will post about, the type of information that broker will post.

43:05Because Ava can consume so much information and so much data today that a human simply can't do about 100 loads. They could put things in notes that would actually provide more context, Ava. So there's all these different things that actually changes how you might think about posting, how you might think about finding and executing and building capacity through a company like Trekstop or a load board. And so, you know, we're partnering with our customers today, our broker customers today to talk about that. And there's some really interesting things that are coming out of that.

43:35Malcolm: That's fantastic stuff, man. I just want to say thank you again for being here. And, of course, opening up September with us, Sean Dehan. All right. He is a VP of strategy and corporate development at truckstop.com. Sean, we appreciate you more than you know. You're always welcome back on What the Truck, brother. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Hook him, Horns. Hey, hook him. Hey. Come on, bro. He got off of here. He got off of here. He got that in and skipped right away. I mean, he got out of here and skipped. Count on you, boy. Oh, man. Look, I got my tickets for that game. I came home and my wife's wearing a Texas shirt.

44:10Malcolm: I was like, what is going on here? It's a beautiful town, man. I love it. I love it so much. I do love it. We're not done. We're not done. We are not done. What? Now, coming in here as the closer of this fantastic Wednesday episode, we got the CEO of MyOVision. He is Mr. Curtis McBride. And, Curtis, you were officially on What The Truck. You've been waiting patiently, and now you're here in the flesh. What's up, Curtis? Welcome to the show, man. Thanks. Great to be here. Good to have you. Good to have you. How's everything going, man? oh that's pretty good yeah coming up on the end of summer here but uh it's been a great one that's been a great one it is right like next week this coming weekend is labor day right the official end of the summer i guess or the traditional end of the summer that's crazy listen i've heard some rumors curtis that you like to get out there and get your hands dirty to really understand your work and get in there and i think we got cody did you get that video of him out there doing some like on the street yeah there it is there he is right there

45:18There it is. That's real footage of Curtis out there understanding traffic flow patterns, man. Just getting his hands dirty, making it happen. My dancing's gotten a lot better since AI became so popular.

45:33Malcolm: No, that's real footage. What are you talking about, Curtis? Come on, man. You're supposed to verify that. That's all you. That's all you. Speaking of traffic, let's talk traffic because traffic engineers are dealing with a lot of disconnected systems today, Curtis, as you know. What does the traditional traffic study process actually look like from setup to final report? You know, from from the very beginning, I mean, where where should we where should we even do the traffic study? Right. Like, let's say you live in a city that has 500 intersections. which are the ones, if we can only do 50 this year, which are the 50 we should focus on.

46:11So right from the front end today, a lot of that is driven based on citizen complaints. And then once you decide which intersection you're gonna go do, you deploy some equipment, you go and you do some portable traffic counts, maybe for one day, you hope that that day is representative of the average traffic patterns, because you're gonna make a whole bunch of decisions about how to re-time a traffic light. So, for example, if you counted the intersection and 70 % of the traffic was going in the north-south direction and 30 % in the east-west, you'd set the timing of the green, yellow, red lights based on that.

46:48And then you would deploy that to the side of the road. And that exercise might take from start to finish, might take six months. And you hope you counted it on a representative day and you hope that it hasn't changed by the time you deploy the fix. And with technology today, the ability to continuously measure what's happening, use probe data from companies like Geotab that have tons and tons of data out there to figure out where your hotspots are, and then use AI to accelerate your time to resolution. We live in a world now where you could find a problem and fix it in the same day and deploy it, as opposed to taking that six months of process.

47:27you know taking taking some of the jokes that i was making with uh the gentleman earlier the geotab the study on the things that in all serious i was pointing out that why don't we understand and are we moving towards intelligent traffic control just like i what i said right right if the w is going to fly in wrigley field the traffic's going to be much different than if it's not going to fly. You know what I'm saying? And when they realize that, that can be applied to all kinds of things, right? Like weather delays around traffic, around airports, right? If there's weather delays coming into O 'Hare or into, you know, CHA there in Chattanooga, traffic patterns change dramatically, don't they?

48:12Along with the seasons. But, you know, seasonally, you would think that you could do these, but we really should be at the time where we can do this in real time, right? Based on events that are occurring. Is that what the type of thing you're Yeah, 100%. It's been said that the future is here. It just isn't evenly distributed yet. And I think if you look at what MyAVision does, I often tell my 11 and 12-year-old that I make time machines because we connect 1985 to the 21st century. And so much of the infrastructure that's out there was put down decades ago. It's unconnected. It doesn't have a lot of sensors.

48:51So while it's definitely true that all of the data, if there's gonna be a football game, if it's gonna rain today, all that data is available digitally through APIs on the internet, getting that data down to the actual control layer of the intersection takes a company like Myovision to come along. And I often describe our product as like the smartphone of the intersection. So we connect a digital intelligence, communications to a cloud service through cellular network, we connect that to what is essentially a glorified egg timer side of the road that's controlling the traffic lights. And we make that egg timer aware of the things you're talking about and smart and able to react.

49:39In addition, all the data that you're talking about that is available and we can bring into the control model, we also have a pretty advanced camera technology that can basically turn video into traffic data. So, you know, to use a buzzword, we essentially create like a digital twin of what's happening, you know, car, truck, bus, cyclist, pedestrian, where are they going, turning left, turning right, that kind of thing. We bring all that information to bear with some of the external information you described and try to help cities make better decisions about how to optimize the flow of traffic.

50:13Malcolm: Curtis, let's talk Mateo for a second because this is a pretty robust thing that you guys got going on. Very intrigued about it. Can you explain it to our listeners and viewers, if you don't mind? Yeah, for sure. Mateo, I mean, we've been at this 20 years. We've launched lots of really exciting products over the years. I think Mateo is the most exciting thing that we've ever launched. I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with large language models, the open AI and the clods of the world. And what I describe there is like imagine a book smart individual, someone who's spent their whole life going and getting three PhDs.

50:49They know everything about traffic engineering that they've read in the textbook, but they couldn't tell you necessarily what's happening at the corner of your busy downtown intersection. So what Myovision brings to the table is we have 10 times a second we're sampling that digital twin of the roadside. And so what Mateo is, is it makes the book smart large language model street smart, you know, pun intended there, by basically providing all of the context about what's actually happening, not theoretically, but actually happening at the intersection. So now our customers, which are often, you know, state and municipal traffic engineering departments, they can literally have a conversation with their traffic network.

51:33So where are my most unsafe intersections? Where do I have cyclists interacting dangerously with vehicles? Where do I have my most congested intersections? What could I do about that? And we've basically made it so that, you know, in the case of a, let's say, a citizen complaint that comes in, City of Detroit is a great user of our system. We have 100 % of their intersections deployed. We've helped them to reduce the response time for citizen complaints by two orders of magnitude. So whereas it used to take weeks to respond, they can now do it in minutes because they can just go in and have a copy paste email right into Mateo.

52:13Mateo helps them diagnose the problem, recommend the solution and deploy it and even write the email back to the citizen. Tell them, hey, thanks a lot. We fixed your issue. That's fantastic. That is awesome. That's fast reactive. But let's talk about how you get to proactive. right so that that's that's fantastically quick and and reactive but you're you're hooking up to multiple things and learning patterns right so how does that get to the proactive side yeah so i mean uh it's funny we always talk about uh you know maslow's hierarchy of needs we try to meet our customers where they are so you know we're taking them in some cases from having no data about their network to having you know 10 times a second from every intersection in their in their network.

52:57So we try to sort of walk them up from food and shelter all the way to self-actualization. So what you're talking about is the top of that stack where example would be a product called adaptive signal control. So it's instead of waiting for the complaint to come in or waiting for an alert to be fired saying, hey, you got a problem. It's anticipating with all of the data we have, you know, hey, you have a Detroit Lions game coming up. You know, this is what has happened in the past, let's proactively change the timing plan so that we can get out ahead of the issues before they even occur. We have lots of customers that are at that top of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs stack.

53:35And then we have lots of them that are sort of moving their way up the stack.

53:39Malcolm: And I just want to say, this has been such an awesome segment with, again, the CEO of MileVision, Curtis and Brad Curtis. We appreciate you more than you know, man. And you're always welcome back on What the Truck anytime. Tom. And of course, thanks so much to your team for getting this set up for us. You guys are doing incredible work, brother. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun for sure. It's been a lot of fun with you guys, man. I want to thank again, all of our guests today, just to again, round it out. We had Curtis McBride that you just heard from. He was with mile vision.

54:10Malcolm: Of course we have also had Sean Dehan. He was with truckstop.com Nate V with altitude and rusty Kirby with pilot flying Jay talking all about 50 grand and a Kenworth up for grabs. Let's look at Fridays. Let's look at Friday show before we get out of here. Yeah. All right. Because we have two great guests. All right. We first are going to have Johans Arians. He's the CEO of Range Zero Emissions. And then backed by popular demand is the founder and CEO of My Mechanic, Inc. Alec Busibitz. He is going to be here on the show as we head into the first full weekend of college football on the first weekend of September.

54:49Malcolm: That is it for us, for Michael Vincent, and for Malcolm Harris. It's peace, it's love. You hear the music, we're about it here. We'll see you next time. Peace and love, everybody.

55:33Outro Music