Ken: 0:26

Well, good afternoon and welcome to another exciting episode of the ground transportation podcast. I am very excited to have as my guest today, probably the most preeminent DOT and safety expert in the entire industry in the chauffeured and motor coach industry. Gentleman named Tom Holden. Tom and I have known each other from, Back in the days when I was a crazy out of control operator and we worked together. This is going to date us, Tom, but we worked together on the 2012 presidential conventions. we took care of the Republicans down in Tampa and then we moved the whole fleet operation up. To Charlotte, when you were working with an op as, as,

Tom Holden: 1:14

Yeah.

Ken: 1:16

of that operator. And, uh, we killed it on the Democrat side. So, Tom Holden, uh, thank you for being my guest and, and, and tell us a little bit about your background and then we're going to, we're going to talk some questions for the operators. So hopefully you have some actionable advice.

Tom Holden: 1:34

Perfect. Thank you. And thank you, Ken, for the invite to this event here. you know, my background and I'm, I'm older than you, so I'm dating myself even more, but my background has always been in a management or ownership position all the way back in my Jersey days, born in Philadelphia. you know, grew up the old school, hard knocks. type of university. Did go to college in Florida. Um, Catholic college. Believe that. ultimately, by the time I bounced around and and landed in Charlotte, I came to Charlotte for an entirely different reason. I was hired by a corporation here, worked for them for seven years. And then ultimately, Started looking for some part time work and I was hired on by a local, limousine company at that time, to do some part time work, you know, nights and weekends, get some extra green in the pocket. And, uh, I was interviewed, by, a very well known person. You know him well, Charles Tenney, uh, was a consultant of the firm I was with at the time. And, and he made it quite clear to me that, That I needed to be on the inside working in the office versus doing part time driving and that following Monday. There was a cubicle space open. it was a single shift company at the time doing about 1 million. and as we grew, you know, we, we, we would just like most other small companies, we would end up going to, um, an answering service at the time. And then you go home and try to eat dinner and answering services calling you. And so after putting up with that nonsense, I said, we have to create a second shift dispatch. And so we did that and we continued to expand. And the further we expanded to the West coast, the phones were ringing after 11 o'clock and then they started ringing at four o'clock. Right. And so we created a third shift dispatch and never. Looked back, never turned it off. Even during the recession, we maintained, our own, lifestyle, right? we could leave the office when it was the appropriate time for us to leave and then, and then deal with family or whatever we needed to. to deal with. But, you know, I, I think I was pretty instrumental in growing that company from a million dollars to a 10 million size and operation. We added motor coaches halfway through my tenure there and, um, grew that to 23 motor coaches, 15 mini buses, four executive vans, and then the rest of the fleet, you know, the sedan and SUV world. and we were the big gorilla for this region. We were the, we were the largest. At that time, the largest probably in the state. and, and, and. You know, just doing phenomenal work. 16 years.

Ken: 4:10

You, you were with them for 16 years. evolved from the limousine sector, the limousine only sector that you went into the mini coaches. Talk about the transition from the minis to motors, and then talk about how you became so astute on DOT and safety from an operator's perspective.

Tom Holden: 4:35

Yeah. So for me that you'll, you'll love the answer. I'm going to give you for that. But, but we went, uh, we went from three mini buses at the time, and continue to grow that. And we were farming out motor coach work, right? was very profitable when we farmed out motor coach work and we got so much of it. We had a, we had a Texaco account, NASCAR, a lot of NASCAR business and so forth. And, once you farmed it out like that, there was very little control, especially in Charlotte at that time. they didn't want their drivers to talk to the company like us or whomever you had to go through their dispatch center. And the quality just wasn't a chauffeured quality. Right. And so, you know, we were farming out about 245, 000 a couple of years in a row.

Ken: 5:25

There you go. A couple of mini buses right there.

Tom Holden: 5:28

yeah, exactly. And so, you know, when, when an event would come in Coca Cola, 600 or something in the Charlotte, and they would bring 500 people in for the race, how many mini buses are you loading up? Right. You have, uh, Two blocks long of minibuses lined up just to move that. That's ridiculous. And so two motorcoaches equals one, right? and so the need to grow that motorcoach, we bought our first motorcoach. and we decided a couple of months after that we had continuous growth. So we bought a second one. and just had to know how the motorcoach world worked before we purchased. They were bus companies with bus drivers. Nothing wrong with that. They still have existence and there's, Well, there's companies not too far from you that That just announced their closing after 140, 150 years, right? They've done wonderful work, but the traditional motor coach company back when we got started, you know, they didn't get out of their seats. They hate it loaded luggage. They had coffee stains on their shirt. They just weren't pleasant. and at, at that time when, when the true chauffeur representation was necessary, you know, the bus driver didn't cut it. And so, we've taken those, those fantastic CDL minibus drivers and turned them into motor coach chauffeurs, right, and, and just lit the world on fire.

Ken: 6:54

So this is pivotal for anybody who's listening as operators listening to things for the success of the chauffeured space, infiltrating, if you will, the motor coach sector or pivoting pivoting to include motor coaches is not just buying a new unit, but it's delivering a higher level of service than the typical bus driver. Right.

Tom Holden: 7:18

That is correct. and you're not going to be welcomed into the motor coach sector, uh, like you think you would be, right? If you guys go out and buy sedans, SUVs, whatever, vans, you're walking into an NLA show, chauffeur driven NLA show, and people are greeting you with open arms. That is correct. you step into the motor coach world. You are the redheaded stepchild, and I just kept pounding and pounding and pounding, and we kept growing and growing and growing,

Ken: 7:45

How do you avoid that? And is it important to, is it important in the motor code sector the way it is in the chauffeured sector to have brethren that you can depend on?

Tom Holden: 7:55

Absolutely. you have to have them not necessarily for an affiliate type of relationship because they don't. work in a relationship like that, right? on an affiliate side, most of them are going to say, Hey, I've got a friend in this city. Give him a call versus them booking it and assigning it to their friend. Right? And so it's a lot different that way. But trust me when I tell you running a motor coach. is entirely different maintenance wise than a, than a, than a cutaway. A cutaway is gonna be a freight line or a chassis, a Ford chassis, maybe a Chevrolet whatever. And, and you can pretty much get service on those vehicles anywhere you go on a motor coach, that's not happening. and so, you know, you're, you're gonna be stuck on the side of the road for a couple of hours before you're figuring things out if you don't have a game plan already set up. And so if you have a friend that's in a motor coach world. And you are truly friends with them. You will be taken care of. They've got most of the time the parts, or access to the parts a lot quicker than you could find them. The tires are different. Changing a tire on a motor coach is entirely different than anything else, right? the hoses and belts are constantly going. So no matter where you're at, you're going to run into that problem.

Ken: 9:09

I 1, 000 percent agree. And I think one of the problems in the chauffeur transportation industry. In general is what I call the herd mentality, which is, Oh, so and so bought a motor coach. Now I should. Okay. motor coaches. Cause I did that. Okay. When I bought a couple of companies, they had four motor coaches and I said, isn't this fun? and what, what a rude awakening that was. And I remember, a gentleman that, you know, well who became one of my mentors who was the founder of the company that you work with. I'd said to me, Ken, you got to have 20, 000 in cash laying around per motor coach, just in case. And I'm like, what, wait, you're kidding me. And he was absolutely a hundred percent, right? So from the perspective of capturing the business, you'll agree that that's the easiest part.

Tom Holden: 9:55

Yes.

Ken: 9:56

but the toughest part is to change your mindset from a vehicle that typically you send to a dealership or you send to a service center versus now you have to have a specialist take care of this motor coach.

Tom Holden: 10:12

Not only the specialist, but you're going to be on a waiting list to get in. first of all, mechanics in truck shops don't like working on buses. I went to school to be a truck mechanic. Right. And so, you're put in the back of the line. You might have to wait two weeks to get a major, a major repair done. Right. luckily, roadside breakdowns are going to be that the tire blows out, um, the, the, the, belts or the hoses will, you know, burst or, or break. you know, those are the typical roadside issues that take place, right? A serious engine problem doesn't. It can happen obviously if you, if you've ignored the signs ahead of time, but you're not going to just, you know, chug along down the road, all of a sudden you blow an engine. It just doesn't happen like that. Brand new units have problems, issues, you know, they have warranty issues, thank God they're under warranty. And let me tell you, Ken, when you were playing in that, in that field, and I was in that field, You know, the, the reality of a repair, I could do an engine replacement on a motor coach and a, on a Cummings or a Detroit engine. And I w we'd spend about$27,000 two years ago. I helped one of my clients with a, Detroit engine replacement and it was almost$60,000 and two weeks ago, I'm in conversation about a Cummings, replacement and was getting a very light, quote that started around$80,000 Okay. And so, and so that$20,000 cash laying around, you know, goes away a lot quicker today than it used to.

Ken: 11:45

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Tom Holden: 11:48

other thing of that is the difference in a motor coach industry back in the day was that most traditional motor coach companies, they kept their buses 20 years. In a chauffeur driven world, if it, if it had dust on it in three years, he had to get rid of it. years, whatever. you know, the murder coach companies, they kept them around. And I remember we won't mention names, but I remember people that got into the murder coach arena from the chauffeur side of it after we did and, and said, Oh, we're not, we weren't going to buy brand new. We have to buy brand new. and then I said at dinner, I'll Uh, with a group of people and that particular owner was in the room and I said, Hey, listen, I, I hear your original brand new buses you have up for sale. Would you recommend to this crowd here at the table that, that they should buy them? And he says, well, of course they're in fantastic shape. we've taken care of them. I said, so it's okay now to purchase a used bus.

Ken: 12:42

Right.

Tom Holden: 12:43

Okay. And so you're right. You had mentioned that, you know, you had to buy a bus, you were following your friend's footsteps. I've seen it way too many times and they ended up being out of business today. and the other thing that, that took place was if you're buying one, you may as well buy two. Well, I don't know when the last time your listeners checked in on a price of a motorcoach, but you know, I'm hearing 620 000 to 750 000 for motorcoach. You're not buying two.

Ken: 13:11

Absolutely. it's crazy. We did a financial review analysis with a, with a chauffeur company that was entering the motor coach space. We deliberately talked to him and you know who the operator is. He great guy, you know, 10 million on the chauffeur side alone. And I said, look, if you're going to enter this, we're going to do it the right way. We're going to analyze your break. Even we're going to analyze your asset utilization. We're going to do a set aside dollar amount for repairs and maintenance. And he argued with me, Ken, it's under warranty. I said, okay, so what happens when breaks on the side of the road? How much do you think the towing is? And his guess was wildly off, right? So when we created the break even, I said, okay, if you're happy with this, you have to do X amount of revenue, which by the way was three times more than he thought he had to, to do a break even. So, so what we're talking about here is number one, absolutely 100%. The market is there for motor coach and high end mini coach work when you're delivering a better customer experience with a better piece of equipment and better customer experience, but that is the tip of the iceberg. That's what lures people into the space, right? What's underneath the surface of the iceberg. Okay. Is the repair and maintenance challenges we've talked about. I can assure everybody in the audience and so can you and you've got more stories than me. It's wildly more expensive than you would ever consider.

Tom Holden: 14:41

absolutely

Ken: 14:42

In addition to that, you cannot enter into this space. without a different training plan for your coach driver than you have on the chauffeur side. I always laugh. The chauffeur side is, he's going to sit in the passenger seat of a sedan. I'm going to show him the airport. I'm going to basically, you know, maybe I'm going to put him through the PACS training, right? And then guess what? Here are the keys to the vehicle. You do that on the motor coach side. You've given someone the keys to, first of all, it's, definitely over half a million dollar asset. And second of all, it's how much does a motor coach weigh? You've given them a literally a nuclear bomb. So,

Tom Holden: 16:00

So let me, let me add something right there real quick to you just for a little piece of, togetherness here. Somebody called me the other day and said, listen, all my motor coach, it's governed at 70 miles an hour and the drivers are complaining. They want it to go faster. People are passing them on the highway. And I said, look. You know, obviously you're the owner of a company and you do whatever you're going to do, but I'm going to tell you what you need to consider first is learn about that 70 miles an hour on that motor coach that has a gross weight limit of 54, 000 pounds, okay? And then you're doing 70 miles an hour. How long does it take to stop 70 mile an hour bus? And then, if you're going to increase it to 75, how long is it going to take? I've seen accidents happen. I've, been on accident scenes. I know the damage that can happen, right? And I said, I said, why don't you just go get in the bus and have a driver drive? You go, go on a back highway somewheres, uh, with no other vehicles around. And and have them do 70 and hit the brakes and then count how long is it going to take to stop that bus, right?

Ken: 16:59

It's like literally trying to stop a jet plane on the, tarmac instead of a prop plane, a tiny little prop plane. I don't think you can underestimate that. so give me the top five things that, you would say to an operator that they have to before they ever consider it. You hit up on one that was, was critical before you got into mini buses, you guys did 240, 000 for two consecutive years. Okay. So you built up the demand. So on the motor coach side of the world, before you would go out and buy your own assets, what would you try to do to prove out that there's actual demand? In your market.

Tom Holden: 17:36

Yeah, so that you you're going to first of all learn what demand is out there already what operators are in your market Okay, calculate how much they're making so that two or three other motor coach companies that are in your market This one's doing three million dollars. This one's doing five million dollars. This one's doing ten million dollars You say okay, there's leverage room there I know that my performance as a chauffeured company in the motor coach arena is going to be able to pick up clients from each one of those three. Okay. already farmed it out, so I know how it works. I know how the start works and the finish works. I understand the rules. Right. I know the driver can't drive more than 10 hours and so forth. And so I'm going into this saying, all right, these are the people that I've farmed out a quarter million dollars to, and the clients I have already, right, I'm going to just let them know that here we are, we've got our, we've got our own vehicle. It'll, it'll be our branding on a vehicle. That's going to show up this time. and we appreciate continuing to do business. So right off the bat, you've got 250, 000 already on the books.

Ken: 18:39

Would you try buying a motor coach if you had less than that?

Tom Holden: 18:42

I would not in today's

Ken: 18:44

I agree with that I would not unless you've unless you've been able to sell the product unless you've been able to sell Motor code services and supervise it track it and with a farm company I would I agree a thousand percent do not do not make an investment Of at the least a few hundred thousand and at most it could be six hundred thousand

Tom Holden: 19:07

Right. Exactly. So the other, the other secret behind that most people can, and you probably see this in your numbers is the fact that say, well, I did 500, 000 in motor coaches. Wait, did you do 500, 000 in one motor coach through the entire year? Or was that five large events that you needed 10 motor coaches at?

Ken: 19:27

Agreed. That's a great, that's a great point. Cause that, yep.

Tom Holden: 19:30

And so does that determine if I had one motor coach, how much am I going to get one out of five jobs? Okay.

Ken: 19:38

Exactly.

Tom Holden: 19:39

And so they think they're doing phenomenal business because of that. And they're really not.

Ken: 19:44

And Tom, you want to, you want to really scare the shit out of somebody and I can say that word because this is my podcast. Do a financial pro forma that shows them how much it costs to have that motor coach sit for a day, for two days, for three days. For four days for five days and say you've got to have the free cash flow to support that and and to your point, they look at the raw number of 500. They're not happy making the farm out delta the gross margin and they say, I want that for myself. And I think that's the wrong headed approach. I think you build it. I think you build it from the bottom up, meaning knowing your cost structure, knowing your break even now, the guy that we were talking about, he flat out said, can I can't get the quality. I can't get these people to do weekend work. I can't. I people are calling us left and right and and we're turning them away. Okay, great. So that's how we're going to do. We're going to do the polar plunge on this. We're gonna do the polar plunge. First of all, do you have the capital? Second of all, do you have money that you can set aside? Okay. That's the second thing. And talk about the changes to the operational infrastructure.

Tom Holden: 21:03

I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of directions. The infrastructure is, has, has been heading, you know, First of all, back up a hair on that, besides the cost and, and, and, and the cash that you have to have available, there are too many people that are buying a motorcoach before they even talk to their insurance company, okay? And so, so you get a motorcoach and then you struggle getting, insurance, or they're calling me up and they're bitching that, that, and I guess I could say bitching because it is your show, but

Ken: 21:35

Tom. Let it roll.

Tom Holden: 21:36

But the reality is is that they're complaining that the cost of insurance. Oh my god I didn't realize it was going to be this much. Well, you didn't do any homework None Just like you said you they should hire you to go over numbers before they make a decision to buy that bus

Ken: 21:52

And get real live quotes from insurance companies and real live quotes on loans and leases. Don't guess.

Tom Holden: 21:58

Right, right. On top of that, the insurance company that they have most likely if they're a chauffeur driven company, most likely won't insure a motor coach. Okay. And so then what you're going to do now, you've got to go search for a whole different company. Now you open up a can of worms. This is going to cost me five million dollars across the board for all my vehicles because that's the way this new insurance company Wants me to do it.

Ken: 22:19

Correct. It'll put a spotlight on your existing organization. so what tactics do you recommend for that? I mean,

Tom Holden: 22:27

Yeah, I mean there are a lot of people today that are that are opening up a separate corporation With a separate dot number, you know when I was in the game we weren't allowed to do to do that

Ken: 22:37

we, we see a lot of that now. we see a lot of secondary companies, but we also see a lot of leasing companies. In other words, you, the person that owns the chauffeur company sets up their own leasing company. That's going to not only buy the motor coach, but ensure the motor coach. And just, just clarify something. You can do this and your insurance company's never going to find out. Right. Right, right. No, the answer is no. You can, you have to do everything in the sunshine. You absolutely, if you treat your insurance company or the insurance age, uh, agents or carriers that you interview for this, right? Thinking that you're going to now have a separate relationship, forget it. It's not going to happen. You have to treat them like a partner and you have to say, these are the business decisions I'd like to make. What are the best practices and what do you suggest as well?

Tom Holden: 24:38

you're right, right.

Ken: 24:39

And by the way, there's, If they want to get into the space, they're a hundred percent foolish not to talk to you first.

Tom Holden: 24:46

well, I appreciate that, you know, and, and, and you've done tremendous work with the numbers and laying out the numbers and how it has to be. I mean, that, that uncovers the world right there. I could certainly guide the people in the right direction on what homework that what else they have to go through. complete. Not only are they going to struggle to get insurance, but there are insurance companies today that are refusing certain type of motor coach work. And so you need to know what, what am I getting into? Am I the chauffeur company or a bus company that's going to do charter work? Okay, that's standard. You're going to get a policy for that. Am I going to jump on a bandwagon and start doing line run business? Because, you know, as, as our government has been changing over the last 10 years, line run business, Uh has been growing right and there's a couple of different brands that are popping around the country some bigger than others and and then one of them even purchased greyhound, right? and so There's only one insurance company right now. That's insuring line run Type of work,

Ken: 25:44

And it ain't, And it ain't, cheap.

Tom Holden: 25:45

No

Ken: 25:47

So again, so you're, you know, you're talking about something. You the lure of the revenue, right? So these there are tech aggregators in the motor coach space And we we don't have to use names But there are there are a bunch of them out there that what they do is they get on the top of Google in every city or try to, and then what they want to do is they're going to farm you the work. Right. And they're approaching chauffeured companies and saying, if you get a motor coach, we will provide you with all of this work. Right. I will tell you, I've never seen any of them that have a gross margin anywhere close. To doing a five hour charter run and you perhaps are doing 12 or more hours on the road with relay drivers for line run. So watch your watch your if you're thinking that you're going to be your entry into the motor code space.

Tom Holden: 26:39

Yeah, again I mean all you have to do is go on the internet And you're going to see who's paying their bill and who's not right? so if I were going to take a a a ride from a broker,

Ken: 26:50

Yep. Which they are. That's all they are is a tech broker

Tom Holden: 26:53

That that's all they are. you know, then they're gonna they're gonna pay me up front Okay, I'm going to get their money in my bank before I rolled the door because because again you mentioned 20, 000 in your pocket just for breakdown issues you start and I hear this all the time Oh, so and so owes me twenty five thousand thirty five thousand on motor coach farm out work I'm, like you better have real deep pockets if you're going to allow that to happen You've been in this industry long enough that you can remember the people that had that kind of money That was owed to them from affiliates of the past, right?

Ken: 27:26

on the chauffeured side. 100%. And I, and I fired a couple of those networks. When I was an operator, people said, you're cutting your throat. I said, are you kidding me? I mean, I'm making it best. At the end of the day, I'm making a gross margin of 30 percent and a net profit of 8 to 10%. And you're telling me you want me to wait 90 days for my money.

Tom Holden: 27:47

why do you think that they're targeting the chauffeur driven area for you to do their motor coach work?

Ken: 27:53

Oh, it's totally ignorance. It's financial ignorance. It's, it's, the industry in many cases is financially agnostic. They don't know their numbers. They become enamored with, I can pay you. X or I can, I'm doing 300, 000 a month in your area or 25, whatever the number is, but what you don't realize is you're putting so much wear and tear on your motor coach that you're going to get upside upside down fairly quickly. So that's the lore of, you know, that's nothing more than. Then the, the, the, the lure of the, the, the swan song, if you will. It's the lure of, oh, all of this revenue is going to change my life. It's not profitable revenue. So talk to us about your business. Tell it, give us a rundown, give us the three minute commercial on what you do because you're the best in the industry at it. So transition us, transition us. So how did you start? How did you start this thing on you, this odyssey on your own?

Tom Holden: 28:47

After 16 years of being in the operator's seat and growing that business and actually, you know, technically having, The ability to have a piece of that pie. I walked away from it all. I walked away from that piece of pie at the age of 60 and decided that I wanted to, to open up at the time it was called bus advisors, right? And I wanted to go out there and help, many companies versus just one. Right. And so I opened up and it was, it was already gangbusters in the very first year. And we, we went from a home office to a real office in two months. we started building, my daughter was the first person I hired. And then we kept building from there. And, now we have, 10 people that are working.

Ken: 29:29

What's your discipline? What do you do for operators?

Tom Holden: 29:32

Yeah, so you could, you could call us a virtual safety department, if you will, with, the fact that you have my experience of backing it up. My son in law works for me here in Charlotte. My son works for me on the West Coast. And so we, we run this as a family business, but they're learning what I've had. Over the past 23 years, and they're learning what's going on in today's audit world. Today's audit world is entirely different than it was 10 years ago. The questions and the demands that are happening now is a lot different, right? And so they're, they're learning a whole new set, you know, for their next 10 years to go on. and things that would never have happened when I first started out.

Ken: 30:11

So, when you say a virtual safety department, you're being modest. You've, you've developed a great technology. And so talk to us about that. Now, how you interface with what's out there already.

Tom Holden: 30:22

yeah. So, so shortly after I started this and doing it the long way, uh, I decided I wanted to create a software. So I hired a tech firm, to start building a software. They're still building for me. I'm never going to be done because it's very addictive. You know, I want to add this and add that, but we have a software product called my dot docs. People can look that up at, you know, my dot docs. com. and that is a, software that's very interactive and integrated with, with a specific, um, ELD currently with more expansions coming, but it has every piece of detail that is in there that the feds are going to want to audit you on. It's got built in reminders. It automatically assigns dates. very color coded. So you as an operator looking at your product and here, here's a big difference. There are very few products that are on the market today that are, that are 100 percent legit. you know, you go into my product, you're capable of opening it up, printing it out, emailing it to the inspector as if that file was in your filing cabinet, right? Within within seconds, you could have all the paperwork you want to hand to the inspector if you wanted to. But in today's world, it's all uploaded, right? And so you're going to click a couple of buttons and boom, it's in his setting already.

Ken: 31:39

So talk to me about the interface with an EID. Pretend I don't know what an ELD is. and do you want to talk about the one that you're

Tom Holden: 31:47

yeah, sure. I mean, I, I, we we're, we're integrated with Samsara, only because the majority of my clients are running Samsara. So I and ELD is an electronic logging device, so anybody that's a CDL or had CDL drivers, there was original paper logs that you had to do. Uh, the government did away with that, and, and it, it had to be an ELD, the ELD, can be self certified, they have to be put on a list government's hands, but if that, ELD is not meeting the required state, then the feds will shut it down. Right? So we're constantly, every week we get an email on what ELD is no longer approved. Right? and so the ELD is out there. There, there, there's a set of rules that they have to follow, and so almost all ELDs are going to be very, very similar. What is it that they do with the data? That's the difference, okay? How much data can you pull out of it if you're going to even do that? then what is it tied into? Is it tied into a camera system? Most of them can be or you don't have to buy both, but if you do, you better study that because there are very, very, very smart, very intelligent cameras that are on the market today compared to what it was as little as eight years ago. Okay. The quality, the AI that's built into it, facial recognition, that is there to, says, oh, alert, Tom's got a phone in his hand.

Ken: 33:13

So let's talk about this for one second. So the Samsara system is installed in the motor coach

Tom Holden: 33:18

Yep.

Ken: 33:19

and not only, it is interfaced with the, with the actual motor coach computers and it has cameras inside and outside. Correct?

Tom Holden: 33:30

So it has a camera in the windshield,

Ken: 33:32

Yep.

Tom Holden: 33:32

Which is looking right at your eyes, right? And there are, different versions of companies with different technology and cameras. Some are off to the right. And so it sees a side view, but when that thing looks directly in your eyes, it knows what your eyes are doing. It will call out distracted driver. It knows you're falling asleep, right? I've, I've watched the video and thank God the person was driving a Volvo. and that chauffeur was falling asleep at the wheel

Ken: 33:56

Jesus. Can you imagine that? 55, 000 pound vehicle and he's falling asleep.

Tom Holden: 34:01

vehicle stopped. Right. And so luckily the accident didn't occur. We've seen way too many people that have the, you know, the drivers look into the left and he run into the vehicle in front of them, you know, it was just. The intelligence in the camera today is very, very, very, exciting to

Ken: 34:17

So you built this software on your own to interface with SIM, the ELD, the specific brand is SIMSERA. So what does the integration give you? What do you, what's the benefit there?

Tom Holden: 34:28

yeah. So, so let's talk about the camera first to get that out of the way. The cameras are still monitored by humans here in my office, right? So when an alert triggers, we have humans that are looking for it because AI is just not going to be there

Ken: 34:40

So the alert being distracted driving, what are the other alerts?

Tom Holden: 34:44

So you'll have following too close, you have speeding, hard braking, rolling stops, cell phones, you know, that type of stuff. You can, do that. And then the companies can say, well, you know what, while you're watching those alerts, what else was that driver doing? Was he, was he eating and drinking while driving? Was he smoking in my car? You know, I want to know these details, right? And so then our job is to take the very important ones, I've seen companies that have almost 200 a day, but let's just assume you have, you know, 25 videos for the day. You don't have to sit there and watch those videos. We'll do that and we're going to send you the one that is real important.

Ken: 35:21

So you're literally the ground traffic control department and safety department. Wow.

Tom Holden: 35:27

You could say that. So we're looking at that. And then God forbid there's an accident, which they, they happen often. You know, the, my team will bring me the video. We'll look at it and that I look and see exactly, you know, I've been doing this a very long time. So I'm going to look at that video 2030 times and I'm going to make a call to the owner I'll tell him exactly what I see, what went wrong. I've been told by owners in the past, I'll call them and say, Hey, just had an accident. Did you watch the video? Nope. My dispatcher told me what happened. I said, what'd they tell you? They said the driver, the driver was hit by a truck. It was a hit and run. and brought it back. And this was a brand new escalate, brand new escalate. and I said, well, that's not what happened. You need to look at your video because your driver fell asleep at the wheel and hit the guardrail

Ken: 36:13

unbelievable.

Tom Holden: 36:14

or a different one again. My dispatchers told me what happened. I said, well, You need to look at it because it was truly your your driver's fault They were in a right hand turn lane only and went straight

Ken: 36:26

You know, and the reality is, it's funny, it's funny to hear you talk about this. This is not, to me, what you do is absolutely not optional anymore, right? You're literally an outside entity that is, managing the safety department and managing the data, uh, for an operator. There aren't too many operators that can afford to have a full time employee do what your service does. And you're not an expense to me. You know what you are? You're a savings to me. You are an investment to me because I can't tell you how many customers and you've, you know who they are. And, and we, we, you know, we've got operators, joint operators that are mutual customers that whose insurance has gone up 40 to 50%. And we lament the fact that they're absolute amateurs when it comes to safety and they're only. Doing safety to check a box and you can't you absolutely cannot do it that way. So, Talk specifically about your integration because you invested a ton of money in your software.

Tom Holden: 37:33

I have and and continue to do so. you know as as you well know, there's nothing cheap, right? And if you're going to do it, you may also do it the right way and my integration On our dashboard, as we call it, when our customers are logged in looking at it, or we're looking at it, there's a specific gray area that is integrated with Sam Sarah, and it's it's pulling the data from Sam Sarah into the system, right? So the data is already there. I don't create the data, and so we're pulling it in. So we see a safety score is in the first column, and I want to talk about that in a second. the next to that is going to be The, the driver has 10 hours. This is on CDL drivers now, right? The driver has 10 hours to drive. Today, he's got 15 hours of on duty. He's got 70 hours for the week, and then, and then starting tomorrow. How many hours does he have after,

Ken: 38:23

is tracking all that

Tom Holden: 38:25

All of that. And so on a, on a 30 minute interval, it's refreshing the screen, counting down 10 hours, nine and a half hours, nine hours. When it gets to three hours, it turns red. Okay, now the people that you've given the authority to log into that system and we could have dispatchers logged in under separate credentials where they only see this part of the dashboard. They don't see the confidential stuff. so they could watch that countdown. You got red and you could hit a button and bring all the red up to the top. So you don't have to go through 10 pages you know, 100 drivers. And you'll see this guy's got three hours. Okay. Well, Johnny, Johnny's got three hours to get back to the shop. And according to my Google, he's four hours away. I have to react as a dispatcher. I have to react. I got to do something. Okay. And so if you go over 10 hours, You know, I'm going to say that was approved by somebody. Okay. I don't even want to say aloud that was approved. The dispatcher approved that driver to bring it back at 10 hours and 15 minutes or 10 hours and 30 minutes. Okay. He made the conscious decision to not get that driver out of the seat. Okay. And so we're giving you a notice, which is again, the data comes directly from Sam Sarah. So instead of you logging into Sam Sarah, bouncing around internet, whatever, we're having it right in front of your face. You can watch the countdown and get them out of the vehicle.

Ken: 39:52

And what else is your software do?

Tom Holden: 39:55

it's going to keep track of all of the records that are required by FMCSA. And then we're very, capable of adding columns and sections. So all the, the New York customers enjoy having all of their 19a records right there on a dashboard.

Ken: 40:09

What is 19 a for those of us who don't know what it is?

Tom Holden: 40:12

So 19a is, is, actually in, penalties and fines is worse than a feds, right? Uh, it is just horrible. I mean, you talk about 70, 000 penalties for You know, six missing documents.

Ken: 40:25

unbelievable. And that's any operator that moves in New York. Or is that just New York operators?

Tom Holden: 40:30

no, that's going to be any operator that's operating within New York. was an operator again in Charlotte going to New York, I would not have to participate in 19 a. And New Jersey has to participate in it because that's what they decided to do right across the border. New Jersey people have to participate in it. New York's offices are audited more so than Jersey offices are right. And so it actually has some very good stuff in there that might think is overstepping. But there's diabetes forms. There's high blood pressure forms. They have to be updated every six months. I mean, New York cares. A lot of times when you, participate in a program like that, the care part of it, becomes very, very stringent and expensive,

Ken: 41:11

Well, look, and why tell us why?

Tom Holden: 41:14

it's all about safety, right? I mean, you, you know, the accident that took place upstate New York, you've seen it too many times. you see bus accidents happening. Uh, and this, this 19 a rule only applies to passenger carrying world. It doesn't apply to the trucking world. And so, so other states have other things that they need. California, they have certain things that they'd like to see. So if you have a state that's heavily controlled by PUC, we, we could build it specifically for your company, city and state. Right. And then those documents are always right in front of

Ken: 41:45

Well, and the other thing that I like about it, and we, both know operators that have been audited, know, when you are audited, and there's an outside company. That you've outsourced to? Frankly, I believe that they look at the data with less of a jaundice eye. They look at the data as being kept by a company that is specifically in business to track and manage all this stuff. Okay, so we're coming up on the end. do people reach you by the way?

Tom Holden: 42:15

Right. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot of different ways you can find us. The advisors. org is my website. Our phone number is 980 999 8484. um, I'm going to be at the UMA show. Mark, myself, and Nicholas will be at the UMA show. And we'll also be at the Chauffeur Driven NLA show right after that.

Ken: 42:34

uh, look at the end of the day, the revenue margin, the gross margins are better on many buses. They're certainly better on the right kind of motor coach business, but it is night and day compared to the sedan and SUV business. If you're going to. risk your life and livelihood and your, own personal money to get into minis and motors, you absolutely need to take the DOT regulations and safety regulation seriously. You know, and the sad part is it was always the case. You always had to do it when you would just worried about a DOT audit. But now the other facet is. The insurance company. So as we finish, Talk to us about the changes on the insurance audit side and the insurance industry side.

Tom Holden: 43:19

Yeah, so the insurance comes in now and they're auditing your books very similar to the Feds do. They don't do vehicle inspections, you know, but, but they know how many vehicle inspections you've had. And so they're going to come in and look at your books, they're going to ask for the same set of documents. And, you know, I was thinking about this while you were just talking, I've seen companies that would not get approved by the insurance company because they have no motor coach experience or no bus experience. Okay. And so their sedan SUV world, their management, their owners, they have absolutely no experience in it at all. And they're being denied insurance coverage for that expansion. you know, that's part of the other homework. If I want to do this, who's going to actually manage it for me? Who do I hire to put into that seat? You know, the insurance companies come in, they want to see the same thing. They're now holding you accountable for stuff that's outside of the realm. You know, and, and you really don't have a choice. You have to go with the flow. You're going to pay for it. And, and there's never going to be a decrease in insurance.

Ken: 44:15

No way.

Tom Holden: 44:16

know an operator, it's very large operator in the motor coach world that just had his, his premiums, 100%, they were doubled,

Ken: 44:24

that we're double and, and you know what? And it's, and it really, we cannot stress this enough. Okay. If you're not managing your safety and you're not mitigating your risk, I don't give a shit if you're a two car operator. Okay. If you're not actively have a safety and risk management program in place, your next policy could put you out of business.

Tom Holden: 44:47

Well, it will, it will put you out and I, you know, I was looking at your questions earlier and I know we only have a couple of seconds left here. But you asked about it in the very beginning, you know, what did I do when I was an operator, and how did I successfully, you know, manage that part of it? The reality is, is that I'm not going to go to prison for anybody, My, my dispatchers very demandingly, you better not let this driver drive more than 10 hours or we got a problem. Okay. And so what I broke down here earlier was insist on having a true safety culture. If the owners and managers don't Have the time. It will never work. Okay, if you're owner and you're a manager and you don't want to be invested Into that safety culture your product will never work,

Ken: 45:38

No, you, you, you just said a mouthful there. And, and, and here's what, you know, you and I deal with, we deal with people that on your side, they're safety agnostic, right? You've got to try to convert them into thinking that they don't need safety in their life. Okay. And I've got to try to convince them that they need finance knowledge in their life and they need the right financial reporting. I don't know about you. I don't deal with the financially agnostic anymore. If all you want to do is tell me about your top line revenue and you have no idea about your gross profit margins or NOI, I'm sorry, go with, go with whoever you've got is, but I, I'm not dealing with you because you're You're going to come to me when you're in such bad shape. Right. I can't help you. You get the same situation, but the one thing I want to leave you with is safety cells. If you can demonstrate that you're a safer operator and you have the scores to prove it and you use your, you use your system and you use, you know, the telematics, um, Sarah system to say, look, our driver safety score is X. Do you really want to save 15 percent by going with a company that they can't even tell you what their score is. So, you know, I would tell operators that safety sells. And if you know your numbers and your numbers have improved, and same thing with the insurance company, demonstrating all of your safety metrics and doing business with your company and saying, look, Before I started with Tom, this is where I was. Look at where we are today. Those numbers speak for themselves and, you can't be safety agnostic today.

Tom Holden: 47:14

No, no you're 100 and on top of that, you know when you're looking you're looking to get into the insurance world You're trying to do better with those guys maybe you've reached the point. You're going to sell your company. My system tracks everything. And so I could easily turn the screen around to an inspector. I can turn around to the insurance company or to you if you're marketing them to selling. Look, here's the owner and here's the management. This is how many times they've logged in. This is how much time they've invested in our software that they know exactly what's going on in the safety world.

Ken: 47:46

Listen, Tom Holden, it's absolutely great to have you on the podcast. I look forward to seeing you in Vegas. give us your website again.

Tom Holden: 47:53

It is the advisors.

Ken: 47:56

Love it. And there's no better, better knowledgeable individual in the passenger transportation on DOT safety. Don't listen to another operator who thinks he knows what the regs are. This man knows the regs. And again, Tom, great, great spending time with you today. And thank you very much for being on the Ground transportation podcast. We appreciate it.

Tom Holden: 48:19

Thank you, Ken. Have a great day.

48:22

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.