If you think that it takes a long time to walk through the show floor of a huge Trucking Conference like the ATA MCE 2017, try doing it where you know just about everyone behind the tables in the booth!!
The ATA MCE’17 was a great time for me to catch up with existing customers as well as a great opportunity to scout for new prospects. Being a part of the ATA Management Conference & Exhibition for five days this October has given me a renewed perspective—and pride—about the industry, the people. According to a 2015 ATA report, over 70% of all freight tonnage in the U.S. goes on trucks. In fact, in the U.S. alone, more than 10.4 billion tons of freight were transported by truck.
From “Automated Trucks” and “Infrastructure Funding” to “Big Data” and “Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA)”, attendees received a plethora of information to help drive their fleets forward. With continual educational sessions throughout the conference, one of the trends that stood out for me was autonomous vehicles and the challenges as we begin to transition to this advanced technology. The technology, public acceptance, legislation and business cases are all key pieces to successfully deploying automated trucks.
One of the best sessions was “Automated Trucks,” presented by Darryl Oster – Assistant Chief Engineer, Peterbilt; Kirk.T-Steudle – Director of the Michigan DoT; and Dr. Ben D. Sawyer – Researcher at MIT’s AgeLab. Featuring state-of-the-art Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) by Peterbilt and their long and short-term investment into the future; platooning, lane keeping and traffic jam assist. Kirk spoke at length on the new autonomous vehicle policy and how states across the US are adopting to this change. The ELD mandate continued to garner a lot of discussion at the conference. Although the majority of fleets are moving forward, there are still some that are not.
Trigent helps clients in the transportation and logistics industry build better Software as a Service (SaaS) products on the cloud, mobile, and OBD platforms. These products help revolutionize the way customers buy freight, manage their shipments, track their assets and increase compliance. At the event, we showcased our superior software solutions for safe, secure, and efficient transportation and logistics management.
I enjoyed meeting many of our customers and people who are considering our service offerings. I also enjoyed seeing what’s new in the industry and talking one-on-one to learn what’s keeping people up at night and driving the industry forward.
If you missed me at ATA MCE 2017, I’d still love to talk to you, drop me a note and I’ll be in touch shortly.
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