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We are the voice of trucking.
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Welcome to Key Up New York, the official podcast of the Trucking Association of New York.
My name is Zach Miller. I'm the director of Metro Region Operations for TANI.
And I'm joined today by Peter Goldwasser, who's the executive director of Together for Safer Roads, or TSR.
And, you know, we'll talk about some of the really cool initiatives that Peter and TANI are working on.
But Peter, first of all, welcome. Thank you for joining us today.
Thank you. Tell me the quick history of, I like the name Key Up. Key Up New York. Let's see a background there.
I think if I recall, we had a list of sort of like 10 names that we kind of thought would be appropriate for the podcast.
And I think we narrowed it down to three. And then I think this is the one we liked.
There is just something very sort of like old school truck about it, but still have that like, you know, we got the New York in there, a little modern.
I think it was between this and TANI talks. And sometimes we still call it TANI talks, but I like, I like Key Up.
I think it's just like, key it up, key it up, dial it in. Let's get ready to roll.
Yeah, I like that. We have T.S.R. talks with a little alliteration, but, you know, for our series of webinars.
But it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to chatting.
Absolutely. And for our long time listeners and viewers know that typically when we have a first time guest on, there's a host of icebreaker questions and we pick one and we ask them.
But occasionally we forego that when there's an interesting tidbit related to our guest. And I'm going to go ahead and take that option right here because Peter and I, both of our families were featured in the New York Times style section about a month apart from each other,
which was just really, really cool. And it was like, I remember, I think it was over Christmas break. I was reading the section and I was like, I know this guy.
And then a month, a month and a half later, Peter and I are on a call and he's just like, I saw that article in the Times that you were in.
So if you could just, you know, tell them what that was about it and how that came to play.
Yeah, and neither of us are too stylish. So it's funny that we got in there. Now, in December, we were pro myself and the family was sort of profiled in the Sunday routines.
And so it was quite surreal, but the times came and you know, I usually get up quite early, go for a long run through Brooklyn and so the photographer met me there at like, you know, six in the morning I was he was on a bike and then we get the bagels and locks and the newspaper
and we go to the library and so we had the whole day mapped out and it was cool. My sister didn't think it was real she thought I made the whole thing up, even though she was reading the paper she's like you printed this fake.
That's surprising, because I obviously don't know you as well as your sister and I'm reading this I'm like this tracks like this is exactly how like this is how I would have assumed he spends the Sundays.
That's good. Yes. So and yeah, then I saw you in for the wedding and so that was wonderful. Yeah, that was really cool and that so it's it's funny.
I wanted the one that you were in because I was saying to my my now wife, I was like, that would be really cool if they profile you know you you run a small off Broadway theater like that would be a cool profile how you know Joe Rafson spends her her Sundays and she's like I'll look into it.
And then literally like a week or two after we had this conversation, they did that profile about somebody who runs a different off Broadway theater and she's like, Well, I guess that's gone.
Yeah, exactly. So she's like, but you know what, maybe let's try for the wedding and and we got we got the wedding one in there so that was really cool and we have it.
You know frames in our living room right now.
That's fantastic. So let's and I guess another thing you know we do have in common of course is you know we we are transportation professionals that really you know at the forefront of what we do is safety.
The state associations are safety organizations and we have the numbers to back it up that if you are a member of a state association you are a safer carrier than your peers are.
And certainly you know you see this all across the country with your members at Together for Safer Roads. So, you know one of the things that as Tanny, we've been looking to do for a while is to come up with a really robust training program for members to take
advantage of, and we're so excited to have have partnered with Together for Safer Roads on the focus for for fleet safety program.
But that's fantastic as are we and so you know for your listeners who maybe aren't familiar Together for Safer Roads is an international NGO and our primary mission in charge is to utilize the resources and knowledge and expertise of our members who are some of the
the most fleet in the world, everyone from UPS and PepsiCoat and Heiser Bush to Republic Services, plus leading hardware software companies so Sam Sarah, Lytics, Modive, et cetera, Roscoe, and figure out how we can discreetly address specific concerns and issues that
affect fleet safety, both for large fleets, medium fleets, small fleets. One of the ways that we do that is through our focus on fleet safety program, as you mentioned, and you know this came about a couple years ago through some research we asked our global leadership
council, which is comprised of all all the smart folks from the different members to, to give us a sense of some critical issues right now affecting small and midsize fleets which represent about 88% of the fleets on the road.
And what they came back with was that, you know, not surprisingly, these fleets often don't have the internal resources and expertise and capacity to develop comprehensive safety systems and cultures of safety.
So this is necessarily the driver training program which is obviously related but a step before and above that, the overarching safety culture that then informs and improves the actual driver training.
And so, based on those insights, and then a bit of what London has done on the Forest Program we spent the next period of time coming up with this comprehensive program.
And so we started with this technology training and development and leadership and began to offer it in cohorts of around 10 fleets to different entities and so we've done it a couple different times and then this year, we expanded it and created an asynchronous
program and we've opened it up more. It still has the community aspect where the group meets, but the modules themselves they're able to do on their own time. And so I think when you and I were chatting, maybe a year ago now, and sort of realizing that, you know, you as an entity and
you have a phenomenal group of fleets that could potentially benefit from this type of program and, you know, our mission in charge and responsibility is to try to help out where we can and so it was a perfect alignment I think.
Oh, completely. And that is so spot on where, you know, one of the challenges is what people don't quite realize, you know, we do because we're in it every day but you know the outside public doesn't realize that the majority of freight is moved by these small and mid-sized carriers.
That really is the bulk of what makes up this industry and there become issues of, you know, their resources and their ability to put together programs as comprehensive as this. And I think another component of this, as you said, is the culture.
It really does start with culture. And you know, that's something that our members, particularly our members that are really involved in our safety council, you know, preach all the time.
By the time you actually get to the driver component, if the culture hasn't been set, it doesn't really matter so much how focused you are on the driver. You know, it's already, you're already playing from behind, so to speak.
I think that's exactly right. We are just on a conversation with another cohort that we're doing and, you know, it's centered around what happens if and how do we track if the driver didn't properly engage X break.
And how can we track that. And that's certainly important.
But if what we find is if that behavior is situated or contextualized within a larger environment of, well, why should you do that? Why is that so critical? This is not a punitive thing if you don't do it.
But if you begin to improve the former, you then are able to be more successful when you introduce and how do you train right like what are the best practices around introducing and around training itself so one of the pillars around training development what is good, successful, effective
training look like from and not just my opinion, but what is the best practice what are the researchers say in terms of how you motivate people around these issues.
So all of that sort of goes into the program and then what you exit with is a must much more rigorous robust informed culture of safety and then you can begin to build out the specific applications.
The program also includes beginning and ending benchmarking, and then a whole slew of templates to be able to modify to your, you know, how do you begin to evaluate technology that you may or may not have and just simple stuff like you know, here's a here's a template spreadsheet that you can begin to
make specific to your end to your fleet, kind of lowering the bar and streamlining stuff, because everyone's super busy right it comes back to the data person that maybe is picking up the phone and answering the calls also the head of safety.
So how do we make their jobs as easy as or easier as possible. Yeah, and I think there there are two components that there are a lot of components to this, of course, but there are two components to that point that I think are really really important to touch on.
And one of them is the peer to peer learning aspect of this program, so that, you know, like you say, they, the best practices are available to them. And if that is that scenario where the fleet manager also has to do something else, maybe as part of their
job function, they have the resource of all these other fleet managers at their fingertips that they can, you know, bounce ideas and strategies off of.
Exactly. The other thing that I think is really great. And this is a pain point that has been identified by some of our members is where they they they make the investments in the safety technology they do and that is we're seeing we're seeing such great
adaptation all across the industry right now in in the safety tech. However, sometimes what happens is, you know, you have a great conversation with the sales team.
You kick it up the ladder and the company makes this investment. And then the sales team hands it off to another division.
And lo and behold, there's the communication isn't as strong. And now fleets have this equipment that they're not properly trained in how to use, therefore negating the safety aspect of it.
Focus has a solution to that.
I think that's exactly right. You know, and you see that in particular with a lot of, let's say, one of the solutions being telematics right. And it's only as good as, you know, you can have all the data in the world and all the the complicated fancy with bang technology
that's not trained on introduced correctly positioned, you know, we see that with cameras right and in cab cameras in particular and it can be perceived as perhaps punitive and versus these are actually there for exculpatory and we know that you're a safe driver.
And there's lots of incidences where we're seeing that we're able to then that let's say the city of New York, you know, is able to then use the film to exculpate the drivers also tremendous opportunities for training and development in terms of watching.
But yeah, I think as a general proposition we approach in the focus program approaches technology, and sort of a neutral way where it's not good or bad. It's, it has the potential, but it really comes down to how do you train on it.
What's the technology that's most useful for you what's the new piece of equipment that's going to be helpful for your situation how is it modified how do you talk about it, how do you understand it.
So there's a lot of, you know, to use fancy words rate a lot of like change management theory. And what does that look like how do you manage change and introduce these ideas. How do you train the trainers right not everyone, just because you may be that's another thing that we talk about, just because you may be a phenomenally safe driver
doesn't mean you're are also necessarily in a position to be a good coach, maybe you are, but those are two different skill sets. And so what does it mean to be a good coach how do you identify good coaches within your fleets.
That's exactly right and that's where I think you know when when when the fleet start to get enrolled in these cohorts and start to get deep into it. I think they'll realize how maybe they were putting a little too much pressure on one or two drivers or one or two components of their training and this really shifts it
around properly and and I think that's a great point where I know, you know, we have fleet managers that the fleet manager will handle a bulk of the training, but where they really need that sort of leader driver is to get buy into some of you know the safety programs
into technology and things like that. And that becomes a whole challenge. And so I, you know, I think if there's a way using this program to make that process easier, all of a sudden that barrier of, or maybe that friction I would say between sort of management and
driver starts to erode, and everybody could see hey we're on the same page here and that page is safety, and it's about making sure we get home safe at the end of the day and people around us get home safe at the end of the day.
Yeah, I think that's exactly right Zach. That's well said there.
So, the, another just quick thing about this and you mentioned it, the forest program in London. Now this is really an interesting program and New York City DOT has brought this up to us, I think maybe it was five years ago at this point that they brought up for us and maybe it was something
that Taney wanted to look at or that the industry wanted to look at. But what exactly did Fours do or does Fours do that is such a successful template that cities from around the world really want to replicate it.
It's a good question. I think what they did is, you know, first and foremost they sort of identified the need for a comprehensive approach to supporting these fleets.
And then they went about creating a program based on best practices and informed by the actual fleets themselves. So I think it's probably really those two things that proved to be quite successful and they've, it's continued to be iterative, flexible, it's adapted over the years to reflect new teachings and
ideologies and theories and so forth. But I think really in the beginning it was just they identified this need and then, you know, came up with a solution that was appropriate for the, for the constituency.
And that right there is why we fell in love with the focus program because it is really by fleets for fleets. And it's not rigid. It's a living breathing system just as safety programs are.
And I think that fleets know that hey, everything that we go through in this cohort has been gone through by all these other fleets around the country. And, you know, as as Taney's cohorts come online around New York.
And I think there's that level of comfort there knowing that we are all in this together when we're on the road we're on this together and this is going to make us all much safer operators.
I think that is exactly right. And you know, and as we were talking before we started recording, we just launched a cohort with with the National Waste and Recycling Association.
We only work with with with folks that have good acronyms Taney and WRA.
And, you know, some of the fleets were, it was a really inspiring kickoff and in that they were quite earnest and direct and what they're hoping to get for and it was to become safer to learn from others to have that group dynamic to hear from experts, and just to slowly,
incrementally improve safety cultures, both, you know, wildly big picture and also wildly direct and simple at the same time not easy, but very clear in terms of what they're marching towards.
Yeah, absolutely. And I do think that's a good point to remember is that for most companies, your safety program didn't get off track right away.
It's not going to get back on track right away but this is a huge, huge step in the right direction. This is something that you'll be able to utilize as you move forward and really shift into that that culture of safety that that we talk about that's the heart of all of this.
Absolutely.
No, I'm looking forward to it. I know that we have plans to kick it off in the next couple of months and and I can't wait to sort of meet your, your members and hear about their experiences and what they're doing and and how they're thriving and and starting to support them.
Exactly. So if you are a TANI member and you're interested in either, you know, signing up for the cohort or you want to learn more, please feel free to reach out to me reach out to Kendra, reach out to Peter at T.S.R. And if you are not a TANI member, well then you really should reach out to us because this is a this is a
benefit for TANI members right now.
Everybody who's anybody is a TANI member that is what that is what I hear on the street.
Perfect. Peter, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us really, really appreciate you having me.
No, really appreciate the work that you do it at T.S.R. and just, you know, excited to keep working together with you here.
Fantastic.
For all of you listening, please remember to like, subscribe and share and comment only good comments, of course, and we'll see you next time at KeyUp New York.