Motive's latest AI-powered safety and efficiency solutions

AUSTIN, Texas—At Motive's second annual Vision 25 innovation summit, the fleet technology provider unveiled a slate of new AI-powered products and updates set to hit the fleet management and driver safety platform this year.

While AI in general has not taken the trucking world by storm yet due to being unknown and untested by a majority of fleets, Motive CEO and co-founder Shoaib Makani said that these particular uses of AI are all aimed at improving three primary concerns: safety, productivity, and profitability.

These new products include:

• An AI Assistant to contextualize operational data on the platform, alerting managers to critical events such as severe weather, who then can warn affected drivers with the push of a button
• AI fraud detection to stop losses and protect against fuel fraud before it happens, backed by a $250,000 Fraud Protection Guarantee
• Motive Analytics that allow for data filtering and chart creation through conversational questions
• Motive Workforce Management, which consolidates everything from expired document alerts to driver training progress

Driver-assist enhancements

In addition to these products, the company also announced a few new AI models for their dual-facing dash cams that detect and alert drivers and managers to safety issues before they cause a crash. One is the Fatigue Index, which uses Motive's inward-facing AI dash camera, and is capable of analyzing and identifying more than 10 indicators of a fatigued driver, like yawning and rubbing eyes, to alert the driver before drowsiness causes a crash.

Another feature, Lane Swerving Detection will detect repeated swerving over time, which can also be a sign of fatigue or distraction.

The third model, Unsafe Parking Detection, will let managers know in real-time when a vehicle is pulled over in a high-risk area, which the company hopes will help prevent “sitting duck” collisions.

While this tool is most applicable when a driver can't find a better place to park at the end of the day, it can also be helpful during an emergency pulloff situation.

"What we found is we also have situations where a driver has a breakdown event and they're on the side of the road," explained Daniel Patterson, director of safety at Western Express. "We're able to engage with that driver, make sure they're putting on their flashers, make sure that they have their triangles out, and then follow up with a breakdown team to get them expedited help as well."

AI Assistant

For a fleet manager already spinning many plates, it's not hard to imagine some information falling through the cracks. For example, tracking weather patterns and remembering to warn drivers of impending dangerous conditions.

AI Assistant will not only bring critical insights directly to a manager's attention, but also instantly and automatically alert drivers when necessary, like if a severe storm is detected. It also tracks fault codes, making sure no time-sensitive issues are missed and suggesting next steps.

The feature currently only focuses on weather and fault codes, since these were the most pressing manual operations the company heard from customers when it came to alerting their drivers about certain issues.

"Now the challenge there is, one, it's all manual," noted Abhishek Gupta, Motive VP of product. "Someone has to literally sit there and do this day in and day out. And then two, there's a huge risk there. What if you just miss telling your drivers? What if you didn't have the Weather Channel on?"

The assistant alerts drivers automatically, which Gupta told Fleet Maintenance is not only helpful from a productivity standpoint, but from a safety and liability standpoint as well. Weather and fault codes are just phase one, and there is potential for the assistant to be a more comprehensive detection and alert product in the future.

"These two pieces that we start with first we think are pretty critical for fleets today, but there's a whole slew of new things that we want to be able to build on top of it," Gupta said. "We want to provide more insights around safety. We want to be able to have it actually take the action for you."

AI fraud detection

Motive also took a stand on the topic of fuel fraud, bringing additional fraud detection features to their Motive Card, along with a $250,000 Fraud Protection Guarantee to cover annual losses when customers enable the new AI-powered controls.

Many fleets know that fraud is happening, but it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where and how to stop it. Caroline Barragan, Motive's head of product marketing, financial products, explains how AI "does the hard work for you," posing a situation in which a vehicle is parked in one location but the Motive Card is being used somewhere else.

"That's eight miles between the vehicle location and the spend location," she illustrated. "When you have auto decline switched on, our AI will spot this distance, know that it's not your vehicle getting filled up, and automatically decline the transaction."

The new controls also give fleet managers the ability to set fuel purchasing parameters, allowing the AI to detect and automatically decline transactions when a vehicle is too far from the fuel location, the fuel level is above the pre-set threshold, or even if there is a cheaper alternative close by.

Dwayne Morrison, senior director of safety and compliance with Southwind, learned the hard way just how costly fuel fraud can be.

"We had one summer where we lost about $60,000 in fuel," he recalled. "Somebody would use a company credit card, pocket $10 cash, and fill up as many friends and family as they possibly could."

With the Motive Card and fraud detection features, Southwind was able to protect against future fuel fraud. 

"You can actually validate how much fuel is going to the vehicle, who's using it, and where it is," he concluded.

Jamie Caylor, manager, driver safe and secure at Carvana, discussed some efficiency benefits of the Workforce Management feature.

"We're eliminating paperwork at the site level location, so we no longer have that middle person communicating between the driver and our safety and compliance team," she explained, "so we're able to send those documents directly to our team through the driver app."

Also new under the Workforce Management umbrella is AI Coach, a feature that will be available to Motive customers by the end of the quarter. The tool allows fleet managers to use an AI-generated avatar to coach drivers with automatic weekly reports tailored to each driver's record, recognizing areas in which they excelled but also targeting areas for improvement.