00:00 Stop Requested.
00:01 Levi McCollum: Welcome to Stop Requested, the podcast where we discuss everything transit.
00:05 Levi McCollum: I’m your co host, Levi McCollum, director of operations at ETA.
00:10 Christian Londono: And I’m your co host, Christian Londono, Senior Customer Success Manager at ETA.
00:20 Levi McCollum: Hey Christian, how are you today?
00:22 Christian Londono: Hey, Levi. Doing good. How’s it going?
00:26 Levi McCollum: That’s going pretty well. I’m really excited to hear what happened at the Transit Bus Summit.
00:31 Levi McCollum: I know you went there a couple weeks ago and spent a few days up in Jacksonville, so tell me
00:36 Levi McCollum: all about it.
00:38 Christian Londono: Yes, it was a great event.
00:41 Christian Londono: Honestly, I’ve been to a lot of transit conferences.
00:47 Christian Londono: The majority when I work for a transit agency.
00:50 Christian Londono: So kind of like in the agency side, not on the vendor side, but you know, going to the Transit
00:57 Christian Londono: Bus Summit, it’s quite different but very positive for both ends.
01:03 Christian Londono: Regardless if you are in the, you know, vendor side or if you’re in the agency side.
01:10 Christian Londono: It’s, it’s, it was a great experience.
01:13 Christian Londono: It’s very insightful. And you know, I’ll tell you, the Transit Bus Summit is an opportunity for transit executives.
01:22 Christian Londono: They typically bring, you know, leaders within a transit agency, those folks that are pretty much either leading a large
01:30 Christian Londono: department of the agency or leading the agency themselves itself, and also the vendors, representatives from the vendor community to
01:40 Christian Londono: bring people to together to learn from one another.
01:43 Christian Londono: So it was a great event.
01:45 Christian Londono: I think that highly recommended. No matter if you’re, you know, professional in a transit agency or if you’re a
01:52 Christian Londono: vendor that has not participated and might be interested in participating.
01:57 Christian Londono: Very great event.
01:59 Levi McCollum: Yeah, I would second that. I went last year and I can say that it is a different type of
02:04 Levi McCollum: conference.
02:04 Unknown: Right.
02:05 Levi McCollum: It’s not the traditional type where you might have, you know, one workshop or a couple workshops, and then most
02:13 Levi McCollum: of it is just one person talking at an audience.
02:17 Levi McCollum: This is very interactive, very participative.
02:21 Levi McCollum: And I think that that in and of itself kind of makes it stand out as a transit conference.
02:28 Levi McCollum: So I’m curious how this differs from when I went last year.
02:32 Levi McCollum: If you would just kind of break it down for me.
02:34 Levi McCollum: Let’s start with day one. What was that first day like? And what do you think were some of the
02:38 Levi McCollum: highlights?
02:40 Christian Londono: Yes, day one, you know, pretty much is check in, everybody coming in.
02:46 Christian Londono: Um, and. And you know, everybody goes through an orientation and you know, something that I like during about the
02:54 Christian Londono: orientation and they’re pretty much telling everyone is, is to really to be engaging.
03:00 Christian Londono: The. The what makes this a successful event is the engagement.
03:05 Christian Londono: Every person that is attending has kind of like Their personal agenda based on what they want to get out
03:11 Christian Londono: of the event. So they. They pretty much the.
03:13 Christian Londono: The folks that are putting this together, they, you know, trying to gauge their needs, their interests as they’re coming
03:24 Christian Londono: to the event. And then all the activities are tailored for them in their own specific needs.
03:31 Christian Londono: And going back to the orientation and the engagement, because everything is pretty much made for you and the way
03:40 Christian Londono: that, you know, and we’ll talk about the sessions and the activities are in a very intimate setting.
03:46 Christian Londono: It’s not large groups. It’s not like that big presentation when there’s somebody speaking up there and there’s like 300
03:52 Christian Londono: people in the room. And then people tend to get distracted, or the content might be for, like trying to
03:57 Christian Londono: catch everyone in all agency sizes and any kind of audience.
04:01 Christian Londono: Then it becomes not really for you, but because this is more tailored to you, it’s very engaging.
04:06 Christian Londono: So, you know, first aid orientation, as I mentioned, pretty much asking for everybody to be highly engaged to make
04:14 Christian Londono: the most of it. And then we started with the welcome reception dinner.
04:19 Christian Londono: So that’s pretty much how the event is kickoff.
04:22 Christian Londono: There’s, you know, a little reception and then we have dinner.
04:26 Christian Londono: And this year, Levi, we had the privilege ETA to sponsor that dinner.
04:33 Christian Londono: So, you know, for me, as a ETA employee, it was great to, as I’m meeting people, bring up
04:39 Christian Londono: the fact that we were sponsoring the dinner and see our logo in every place card in every table, and
04:46 Christian Londono: every. Everybody was recognizing our company.
04:50 Christian Londono: So that was very nice. But that was day one, and I really enjoyed that.
04:55 Christian Londono: Was it the same for you when you attended last year?
04:58 Levi McCollum: Yeah, very similar. Of course, there was the orientation and the reception as well.
05:05 Levi McCollum: I think the reception is especially unique because it does give you a smaller group of people to mingle with.
05:14 Levi McCollum: Oftentimes at these types of conferences, you’re just in a room full of hundreds of people.
05:18 Levi McCollum: That’s not really the case with this.
05:21 Levi McCollum: And as a result, it does feel more intimate.
05:24 Levi McCollum: You feel, at least for me anyway, maybe as an introvert, a little bit more open to go and chat
05:30 Levi McCollum: with people and get to know one another.
05:33 Levi McCollum: I was able to meet several people that worked at agencies in places where I had lived before, like in
05:39 Levi McCollum: Arkansas. There were a couple of folks that, you know, I hadn’t even heard of the agencies that they worked
05:47 Levi McCollum: for. And I thought I knew a lot of transit agencies, but, you know, some were just like, wow, okay,
05:51 Levi McCollum: all right, well, tell me about that.
05:53 Levi McCollum: So you get to learn. And also it’s a bit of entertainment.
05:59 Levi McCollum: You Know, the. The people who are.
06:02 Levi McCollum: Are there are. Are curious to learn about what the software vendors or the hardware vendors have available to them.
06:10 Levi McCollum: So. Yeah, a lot of similarities there on that first day.
06:15 Christian Londono: Yeah. And. And I think the.
06:17 Christian Londono: The first day is also interesting because, you know, at least for me, there was a lot of new people.
06:24 Christian Londono: Like, a lot of, you know, transit agency is kind of like a niche kind of industry, but at the
06:30 Christian Londono: same rate is. It’s a lot of people that are part of the industry, and then there’s always somebody new
06:36 Christian Londono: to meet. So that. That first night, that first day is.
06:40 Christian Londono: Is, you know, breaking the ice and starting to make some of those connections.
06:45 Christian Londono: But what’s interesting and, you know, as you go through each one of these days and because each one of
06:50 Christian Londono: the events in the schedule for this summit, they’re tailored to you.
06:57 Christian Londono: Like, you know, the. The dinners, they’re trying to match you where people that are interested about, you know, what
07:03 Christian Londono: a specific vendor has to offer.
07:04 Christian Londono: And it’s mixed. It’s different agencies from different places and then different vend.
07:09 Christian Londono: They’re. They’re. They’re trying to group people based on their interest.
07:13 Christian Londono: So it’s a great conversation right off the bat.
07:16 Christian Londono: Right. Because when you’re going to other conferences, both the vendors and the agencies, they’re not matched based on their
07:23 Christian Londono: interest. So you’re scouting for, you know, who’s the person that might need to hear from you.
07:29 Christian Londono: And then they’re trying to scout for, you know, the.
07:31 Christian Londono: The people that might have the answers to their questions or their.
07:35 Christian Londono: Their needs. So, you know, it’s really good to have that setting where you can meet them and, you know,
07:40 Christian Londono: start developing that relationship.
07:43 Levi McCollum: Yeah, I concur. I think you could see almost immediately how well the thing is set up.
07:48 Unknown: Right.
07:49 Levi McCollum: The event is meticulously planned. What I found to be the most unique about it is exactly what you’re talking
07:58 Levi McCollum: about, where it’s almost like a dating service.
08:00 Levi McCollum: Right. Where they’re kind of mixing and matching who needs a particular item.
08:06 Unknown: Right.
08:07 Levi McCollum: If you’re in procurement for Thing X, Right.
08:10 Levi McCollum: There’s a vendor there that’s also selling Thing X.
08:14 Levi McCollum: I think that that bit of extra work that the conference organizers do that the Transit Bus summit folks do
08:22 Levi McCollum: really facilitates the interaction that happens over the next few days.
08:29 Levi McCollum: So tell me about. Tell me about day two, Christian.
08:32 Levi McCollum: What was day two like? And, you know, were you able to learn a little bit more about some of
08:38 Levi McCollum: the agencies that, you know, you were matched up with? Did you have some good conversations?
08:44 Christian Londono: Yeah. Day two Both day two, on day three, of course, that they’re the full day so you get more
08:52 Christian Londono: action. But they were equally exciting, I think day two, particularly because, you know, we started with a round table
09:00 Christian Londono: breakfast. So you know, you get to kind of like talk to some of the peers and you know, you
09:06 Christian Londono: know, meet some new people. But we went after that into the small group presentation.
09:14 Christian Londono: So all the vendors get to do a 20 minute presentation to a small audience.
09:21 Christian Londono: I think it was like eight to 10 people was the maximum size of the audience.
09:27 Christian Londono: And there’s two presentations. You do one in the morning, one in the afternoon.
09:30 Christian Londono: And not every attendee or representative from the agency side attends all the presentations.
09:38 Christian Londono: So they only go to the presentations of services or technology they’re interested in.
09:46 Christian Londono: So you know, if you’re maybe the director of operations or maintenance, maybe you want to change your seats because
09:54 Christian Londono: people are complaining about the seats and you want to see what’s out there.
09:57 Christian Londono: So maybe in your next bus procurements you’ll choose a different type of seat that will be better for, you
10:04 Christian Londono: know, your rider. So you want to talk to seed manufacturers and talk to all of them and see what’s
10:09 Christian Londono: the latest and greatest. Maybe you’ve been ordering and it happens the same Levi as you know, to, to different
10:13 Christian Londono: transit agencies. They tend to order every year.
10:17 Christian Londono: They’re ordering new buses for, you know, a state of good repair.
10:21 Christian Londono: So any of their fleet that is beyond their useful life, they’re retiring, they’re adding new vehicles.
10:27 Christian Londono: And very often agencies tend to order exactly the same bus that they just order the year before a lot
10:35 Christian Londono: of the times because it’s easier, also easier to maintain, but very often because they don’t have all the, all
10:40 Christian Londono: the knowledge about what’s the latest and greatest, what’s, what’s, what’s out there and then be able to contrast everything
10:47 Christian Londono: and, and then make their mind about the better choice for their constituents and their organization.
10:52 Christian Londono: So this, this is part of that and, and being able to attend those presentations is a very intimate conversation,
10:58 Christian Londono: very short conversation between those vendors and then those agencies.
11:04 Christian Londono: So our presentation, you know, being 20 minutes and you know, ETA being, you know, full on cat AVL
11:14 Christian Londono: system with a lot of options and features.
11:16 Christian Londono: You cannot really pack an entire demo of our system in 20 minutes and kind of rush through all the
11:21 Christian Londono: features and do a one size fits all.
11:24 Christian Londono: So that’s not what we went for.
11:26 Christian Londono: But we use the time to let people know about us and then also spark a conversation about their experience
11:34 Christian Londono: with their current vendors and technology.
11:36 Christian Londono: What they know about where they want to go, what’s working, what is not working, which was a really good
11:43 Christian Londono: experience. And then we ended with a video of one of our implementations in you know, the customers actually telling
11:53 Christian Londono: everyone about how it went and specifically about a radio integration.
11:59 Christian Londono: We completed that, you know, they were told that was not possible.
12:03 Christian Londono: So that was, that was very insightful.
12:06 Christian Londono: And Levi, if you don’t mind, I want to tell you about some of the things they told us in
12:12 Christian Londono: regards of their experience with the technology.
12:14 Levi McCollum: Yeah, please do.
12:17 Christian Londono: So something that we’re hearing about a lot or you know, these sessions and, and they were telling us is
12:25 Christian Londono: a lot of them are interested in infotainment.
12:29 Christian Londono: There’s some cases where the infotainment is not matching the audio.
12:33 Christian Londono: There’s some challenges that we heard also hardware reliability.
12:39 Christian Londono: You know, some agencies are complaining that their hardware is not like rugged it for transit or it’s just not
12:47 Christian Londono: very reliable. We also, you know, heard about features not having a full on set of features that will match
12:56 Christian Londono: their needs as an agency. So it’s mixed.
13:00 Christian Londono: There’s some folks that are kind of like content with their services in terms of, you know, card, AVL and
13:07 Christian Londono: all these different add ons, some that are going through challenges with hardware specifically.
13:14 Christian Londono: So altogether having reliable systems and different ones.
13:20 Christian Londono: Speaking about infotainment, it seems to be something that they definitely want to add, you know, to their technology set
13:27 Christian Londono: up and to their constituents. So that was, that was good to hear, that was a good interaction to have.
13:32 Christian Londono: And I would tell you that when we played the video about our radio integration and had those customers talking
13:40 Christian Londono: about that, we had a lot of questions.
13:43 Christian Londono: We have people clapping right after the video and asking about it.
13:48 Christian Londono: And one of the things that I share with them and that I take pride in, ETA is being,
13:55 Christian Londono: you know, as a superpower, just to be a master integrator.
13:59 Christian Londono: The ability that we have to integrate different technologies and even, you know, technologies that agencies are told cannot be
14:07 Christian Londono: integrated is our superpower and is something that a lot of people were interested in because in today’s age, you
14:19 Christian Londono: know, you have to have ecosystem of technologies, right? You have to have different vendors working together and technologies integrated
14:27 Christian Londono: to deliver, you know, the best service to the community.
14:30 Christian Londono: So I think that’s what made that day to, you know, a great day is having that opportunity doing those
14:36 Christian Londono: presentations and having those people learning more about us and us learning about them.
14:42 Levi McCollum: Yeah, the cool thing about that small group setting is that if you’re giving the presentation, you almost get 100%
14:51 Levi McCollum: of the audience capture. Right. Their attention is mostly on you because it’s such a small group that you can’t
15:00 Levi McCollum: really drift away and look at emails or pull open a computer.
15:04 Levi McCollum: It just is too small of a setting to be to allow that.
15:09 Levi McCollum: So that’s interesting that you mentioned it, that you were able to get that much attention and that the people
15:18 Levi McCollum: were following you enough and following the presentation well enough that they’re clapping at the end of the video.
15:25 Levi McCollum: So kudos to you and for the story that you were able to tell there.
15:31 Levi McCollum: Another question that I want to ask you, Christian, is about our brand awareness.
15:36 Levi McCollum: You know, were you able to find anybody there that didn’t know who we were or, you know, maybe conversely,
15:43 Levi McCollum: people that knew exactly who ETA was?
15:47 Christian Londono: You know, Levi, what’s interesting is in two sessions we had two sessions.
15:52 Christian Londono: The first session in the morning, we have, we had one of our current customers and they just want to
16:01 Christian Londono: be part of our session, particularly because they’re proud of being our customer.
16:08 Christian Londono: And actually at the end of our session, you know, without us asking, you know, they jump on to speak
16:17 Christian Londono: on our behalf and how pleased they are with ETA, which is greatly appreciated.
16:23 Christian Londono: But the vast majority of the agencies that we presented to didn’t know much about ETA.
16:30 Christian Londono: And you know, I personally didn’t know of, you know, so.
16:36 Christian Londono: So that was very powerful. Right, because you get to learn about other agencies and what they’re doing and how
16:43 Christian Londono: they’re delivering transit and where they are in their technology journey.
16:48 Christian Londono: Right. Because specifically ETA is.
16:51 Christian Londono: That’s what we provide. Right. Transit technology.
16:53 Christian Londono: So we want to help agencies, agencies build that roadmap and then help them move the needle.
16:59 Christian Londono: So having that opportunity to meet agencies that first they don’t know about us, so they start learning about the
17:05 Christian Londono: services and who we are as a company and then for us to learn about them and how we can
17:11 Christian Londono: help them with the daily delivery of operations using our technology.
17:16 Christian Londono: So that was very powerful.
17:18 Levi McCollum: Yeah. Any unique stories that you have there about an agency that maybe operates a little bit differently or in
17:25 Levi McCollum: an environment that you just wouldn’t expect?
17:32 Christian Londono: No, I, you know, what I would say is this.
17:36 Christian Londono: So there’s, there’s, there’s different setups is you usually have those agencies that are very rural or semi rural and
17:45 Christian Londono: then they’re starting some fixed route and they have like fixed route or like fixed route in some of fixed
17:52 Christian Londono: route flex and then a lot of demand response that they do in different ways.
17:58 Christian Londono: Some of them mixed vehicles for the different services.
18:01 Christian Londono: So that’s kind of like one of the agencies that you find what, what type of agencies and then you
18:07 Christian Londono: have another one that is more like fixed route, you know, whole blown up fixed route.
18:13 Christian Londono: And then they have some micro transit demand response and then they’re trying to see how they can integrate everything.
18:19 Christian Londono: Which was another thing that we heard about different agencies were discussing when we’re talking about customer experience, how, you
18:29 Christian Londono: know, today they have different apps and they have to point their writers to download different apps and how difficult
18:39 Christian Londono: that is. You know, it’s hard to just educate the public about one app, how it works, how they, you
18:44 Christian Londono: know, use it. And then now if you have to point them to different apps that, you know, one doesn’t
18:48 Christian Londono: even hyperlink to the other one, but they have to understand what to do in each.
18:53 Christian Londono: It’s just too much for the writing public.
18:56 Christian Londono: So they, their dream, you know, as we were talking about customer experience in one of the round tables, is
19:02 Christian Londono: that, you know, the, the, the technology sector will provide that one app that will do everything all encompassing instead
19:11 Christian Londono: of like fragmented pieces. The next thing that I will tell you that I heard from them and again, you
19:19 Christian Londono: know, I don’t think there was like any particular case where there was very different.
19:24 Christian Londono: I think they all had a similar, you know, operation or experience, but something else that it came in terms
19:32 Christian Londono: of technology. And you know, you might remember on our, when we were in our days at Pomtor, we discuss
19:40 Christian Londono: about translation device, an onboard translation device.
19:46 Christian Londono: And Levi, this is one I wanted to share with you actually and you know, share with other people at
19:51 Christian Londono: ETA because a lot of these agencies, and it was not me who prompted it, it was, you know, a
19:57 Christian Londono: CEO of a different transit agency, I believe in Alabama.
20:01 Christian Londono: And she said our community has a lot of people, you know, that are from different places that speak different
20:10 Christian Londono: languages. And one wish of our be to have any kind of assistance so that, you know, the drivers could
20:18 Christian Londono: do a quick translation when, you know, they’re trying to give instructions to somebody, explain something very briefly and then
20:24 Christian Londono: they’re there in front of that writer that doesn’t speak any English and they’re not able to communicate.
20:30 Christian Londono: So that was something that, that was also communicated that will be good for transit agencies and, and several transit
20:37 Christian Londono: agencies that were in the same roundtable, they agreed that they will benefit.
20:42 Christian Londono: They say, oh yeah, yeah, we definitely need that.
20:44 Christian Londono: I believe somebody mentioned that they use Google Translate or they use an app that is currently available that they
20:53 Christian Londono: recommend their supervisors to use it when they go inside and they have to Speak with people that don’t speak
20:58 Christian Londono: English. They’re already using one of those translators out there to be able to get the message across.
21:04 Levi McCollum: I see. But on their personal phone, perhaps.
21:07 Levi McCollum: Right.
21:08 Christian Londono: Or I guess it could be a.
21:09 Levi McCollum: County or city device.
21:10 Christian Londono: Yeah, something. Something like that, but.
21:12 Christian Londono: But something very not made for transit.
21:16 Christian Londono: Right. Like something that you just do from the Internet and you kind of, like, make it work.
21:20 Christian Londono: But they said that something nice that will be incorporated as a, you know, in the bus will be beneficial.
21:27 Levi McCollum: Yeah. Well, now we’re giving business ideas on the podcast.
21:30 Levi McCollum: I guess maybe we should reclassify the podcast.
21:35 Christian Londono: Hey, we’ll see. Yeah, I honestly, you know, I want to see it develop because I can see the value
21:42 Christian Londono: of it. And a lot of the communities, the writers, they have writers from different places around the world.
21:47 Christian Londono: And I think it will help, you know, get people where they need to go mitigate a, you know, arguments
21:58 Christian Londono: on a vehicle because of misunderstandings.
22:00 Christian Londono: You know, I’m not. I don’t know what you’re telling me.
22:03 Christian Londono: You’re yelling and screaming that I, you know, I don’t speak the language and then I don’t know what to
22:07 Christian Londono: do. So if there was that Help ease that communication barrier, then it might help everyone.
22:15 Levi McCollum: Yeah. Back to your point about integration, of course, that’s what we feel like we excel at.
22:23 Unknown: Right.
22:23 Levi McCollum: We pride ourselves in integration. Is that a theme that you feel like was probably the most prominent throughout the
22:32 Levi McCollum: conversations that you had with individuals there at the Transit Bus Summit? You know, in other words, is.
22:38 Levi McCollum: Is it the case that vendors just don’t want to work with each other in some cases?
22:45 Christian Londono: I don’t know for sure about that one.
22:48 Christian Londono: What I would think is a lot of the vendors today, and again, this is my personal perception, are more
22:55 Christian Londono: willing to work together than ever before.
22:58 Christian Londono: But. But from the agency standpoint, we do have agencies stating some technologies they have and like and would like
23:08 Christian Londono: to keep. So if they’re doing any technology changes or transitions, you know, I use remix for planning and for
23:15 Christian Londono: doing this and that, and I love it.
23:18 Christian Londono: So pretty much they’re telling you, you know, other aspects of my technology and the things that we have at
23:24 Christian Londono: our agency, we’re willing to change.
23:26 Christian Londono: We’re not in love with these aspects, but this specific technology, we love it.
23:31 Christian Londono: So whenever we decide to move forward, either it’s with you or whomever, you better know that there has to
23:39 Christian Londono: be some integration or that this has to be taken into consideration because we understand, again, is an ecosystem of
23:47 Christian Londono: technologies and they all need to be able to talk to one another and be integrated.
23:51 Christian Londono: And the customers, in this case the transit agencies should have the freedom to see and choose what works best
24:01 Christian Londono: for their agency. Because there’s different factors that take place when it comes to the decision making.
24:06 Christian Londono: You have the budgetary aspect, so maybe there’s a Rolls Royce of whatever solution, but it’s too expensive for them
24:13 Christian Londono: so they, they cannot really afford that.
24:15 Christian Londono: They would love to have that, but maybe they have to choose something that is more appropriate for their budget.
24:21 Christian Londono: Then, then also it has to do with the different types of technology.
24:24 Christian Londono: So if, if they have to have, you know, like you have a head sign, but it has to be
24:29 Christian Londono: integrated to the CAT AVL system and you have announcements that needs to be trigger, you know, specific geospatial location.
24:39 Christian Londono: So all these requires integration. And nowadays from the agency’s part they are asking for more integration.
24:46 Christian Londono: And I think from the vendor side, although there’s been resistance in the past from integrating, I think now they’re
24:55 Christian Londono: coming more a place where it is important to integrate and everybody.
25:00 Christian Londono: There’s a lot of really good players in each different aspect of technology and the agencies recognize it.
25:07 Christian Londono: So the vendor community is definitely being asked to integrate more.
25:15 Levi McCollum: Yeah, well, that is a good thing that vendors are more willing to work together now than ever before.
25:21 Levi McCollum: At least that’s your perception. And it also underscores why open data standards are incredibly important.
25:30 Unknown: Right.
25:30 Levi McCollum: Because that means that there’s interchangeability, there’s interoperability between devices.
25:36 Levi McCollum: So agencies should be aware of that.
25:40 Unknown: Right.
25:41 Levi McCollum: That vendors can provide some interoperability.
25:45 Levi McCollum: And that really should be a default from the vendor and from the agency side.
25:51 Levi McCollum: That should be the expectation. Right.
25:53 Levi McCollum: If I’m Agency X, I want to be sure that if I swap out any of my equipment on my
26:00 Levi McCollum: bus that I’m not losing my data.
26:03 Unknown: Right.
26:04 Levi McCollum: I’m not losing access to some of the information that I previously had.
26:09 Levi McCollum: Or in an ideal world I could just buy the hardware and be able to change vendors, whether it’s a
26:17 Levi McCollum: CAD AVL vendor or you know, whatever technology it is and keep the equipment.
26:23 Unknown: Right.
26:23 Levi McCollum: Because I would own the equipment.
26:26 Levi McCollum: I think that that would be ideal.
26:28 Levi McCollum: I think we’re still quite a ways off from that.
26:31 Levi McCollum: But you know, really the expectations around what the technology vendor can provide or should provide is starting to change
26:42 Levi McCollum: and I think that works to the benefit of the transit agency.
26:45 Levi McCollum: What do you think?
26:46 Christian Londono: No, I agree it’s being demanded by transit agencies.
26:51 Christian Londono: But you know, we have to work together.
26:55 Christian Londono: There’s no other way. And we have to share data with one another.
26:58 Christian Londono: And those standards only help to achieve that because it’s happening across industries, not just in the transit industry.
27:07 Christian Londono: And it’s important also for those transit executives to know what to ask for and what to demand.
27:14 Christian Londono: Because, you know, in government procurement, you’re going to go through our request for proposal and different vendors are going
27:23 Christian Londono: to have the opportunity to participate on the procurement, opportunity to provide the services.
27:28 Christian Londono: But the technology aspect, it’s important to say, I don’t know.
27:33 Christian Londono: When you don’t know something, transit executives are being asked to make all these decisions and they have to select
27:41 Christian Londono: their vendor or their partner for, you know, all these different projects that they have.
27:46 Christian Londono: But particularly, you know, during the summit, we talk about this with, you know, some of the folks that we
27:55 Christian Londono: met with and given some recommendations about the procurement.
27:58 Christian Londono: So first thing is really get educated about the offerings and know what players are out there in the industry
28:05 Christian Londono: and who are they serving. That looks like you.
28:08 Christian Londono: Because, you know, one vendor, one solution might be appropriate for a given community or a type of agency.
28:15 Christian Londono: But if that agency is very different from you, then it doesn’t mean, you know, it might mean that that’s
28:21 Christian Londono: not particularly a solution that might perfectly work for you.
28:24 Christian Londono: So it’s good to understand that piece and learn a lot about the, you know, what’s out there, vendor wise,
28:31 Christian Londono: before you actually go into procurement.
28:33 Christian Londono: So you can actually ask those questions and then be aware of the, you know, you know, the challenges if
28:41 Christian Londono: there’s anything related to owning equipment or owning the data or being able to integrate with other vendors or what
28:48 Christian Londono: happens at the end of the contract and what opportunities I have to transition to a different technology if I
28:53 Christian Londono: have to. I think it’s very important to, you know, understand that prior to any procurement.
28:59 Levi McCollum: Yeah, A large part of the battle there is just knowing what questions to ask.
29:03 Levi McCollum: Right. You could go through the procurement process and think that, man, we chose the right vendor, we got the
29:10 Levi McCollum: technology we wanted, and perhaps during implementation, you think of something that you didn’t happen to think of prior to
29:18 Levi McCollum: the actual deployment. It’s good to have that expertise in your network around you.
29:26 Levi McCollum: People that have experienced similar launches and use them as a resource, or even use the vendor as a resource
29:36 Levi McCollum: or multiple vendors as a resource just to get to understand the technology that you’re going to buy.
29:44 Levi McCollum: The bus is essentially a big piece of technology now.
29:47 Levi McCollum: It has changed so dramatically over the last several years.
29:52 Levi McCollum: What would you say, Christian, would be the overall takeaway, if you had just one sentence to say the Transit
29:59 Levi McCollum: bus summit for 2025 in Jacksonvill was, was this, what would that be?
30:07 Christian Londono: Personalized insight into the transit industry.
30:12 Levi McCollum: I like that.
30:13 Christian Londono: Yeah, I think, I think that like we said, they start by knowing your specific needs and wants out of
30:20 Christian Londono: the summit. And then every experience that you go through, it is tailored to you.
30:25 Christian Londono: So, so I, I, for the most part myself, I, I got to learn a lot about a lot of
30:32 Christian Londono: agencies that we would love to work with and learn particularly about their operations and how we can better offer
30:39 Christian Londono: services to, you know, help them provide their everyday transit service.
30:45 Christian Londono: And I think they got to learn about us and, and overall technology that would help, you know, serve better
30:51 Christian Londono: their community. So I think it’s all together 100 recommended event.
30:56 Christian Londono: And I do think that there, there should be a little bit more of that speed dating and, and, and,
31:02 Christian Londono: and matching. Apply to other conferences that are out there where it will help people better connect to those opportunities
31:12 Christian Londono: in that learning that they’re seeking.
31:16 Levi McCollum: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right.
31:19 Levi McCollum: If you applied that type of matchmaking to other conferences, I feel like they’d be more impactful, that people would
31:26 Levi McCollum: have more to take away from it than just tchotchkes and buses.
31:31 Levi McCollum: You know, sometimes it feels like that’s all you get out of a conference, but in this one there’s just
31:38 Levi McCollum: so much more. So, you know, I want to thank our listeners for tuning in.
31:42 Levi McCollum: I know this conversation was all about Transit Bus Summit, but it’s, it was an experience that Christian had recently
31:49 Levi McCollum: that I had last year. So, you know, thanks for checking out this episode.
31:55 Levi McCollum: Christian. Where can people go to learn more about Transit Bus Summit if they’re interested?
31:59 Christian Londono: So the information about next year’s, which usually happens about, you know, September, I mean, February, that, that’s a, that’s
32:08 Christian Londono: when the summit takes place. The information is on the website.
32:13 Christian Londono: You can find it at transitbussummit.com.
32:18 Levi McCollum: Excellent. Cool. Well, for those of you who are planning on attending next year, you know, perhaps we’ll see you there.
32:24 Levi McCollum: If you’re not, then take a look into it and let us know what you think and we will catch
32:30 Levi McCollum: you next Monday. Thank you so much for listening.
32:32 Christian Londono: Thank you for listening.