Birdseye Security Talks Truck Yard Safety with BCB Live
How Birdseye Security Keeps Truck Drivers Safe and Accountable
Truck drivers care about fast and efficient work. They also want to ensure their safety when they’re on the lot. Live remote monitoring services from Birdseye Security Solutions make both possible.
Through interior and perimeter monitoring, as well as gate operation and access control, mobile agents can ensure that safety protocols are followed, act to detect and deter criminals, react to dangerous situations such as fires, and much more.
Mark Keating of Birdseye Security recently spoke with BCB Live to explain how live video monitoring drives accountability and improves driver safety.
Video Transcription:
Sir Rick: Hey Drive Safe Dave we talked last week about Birdseye Security. And you challenged that their cameras can’t see a seal number.
Drive Safe Dave: If we can read a newspaper from space, I think we can. It is fascinating technology, fascinating ability on what’s going on, incredible technology. And you know what, we definitely have somebody that can speak to it first hand.
Sir Rick: Hey Mark! Good morning to you, sir.
Mark Keating: Morning, Drive Safe Dave and Rick! How are you guys doing?
Drive Safe Dave: We’re doing fantastic this morning! Excited to have you on today. I really want to hear a lot about the technology that you bring in a lot of the ideas that are going on and what do you got going on in the industry today.
Sir Rick: Hey Mark before you get there, I’ve got a question for you cuz we got a challenge yesterday. All right, first of all, is that your real name? Is your name Mark Keating who does marketing?
Mark Keating: Yeah, so, yes, I think I was born to this role. Clearly, my parents were prophets because they named me Mark Keating and I’m in marketing.
Sir Rick: Now, what else could you have done?
Mark Keating: Seriously! My dad was an engineer, he was very disappointed in me that I didn’t get into engineering. I, you know, I looked at him and I said, listen you named me what you named me. How can I how can I go wrong with that?
Drive Safe Dave: That’s total greatness, right there!
Sir RIck: Hey Mark do us a favor. Tell us, in general, a little bit about what your product is at Birdeye Security.
Mark Keating: Yeah, so we were born out of, as you can tell from the name, building out security for commercial and industrial yards, Our customers are in the trucking industry. And so, our customers have asked us over the years to expand into other areas including monitoring the interior of the yard, making sure that drivers and vehicles are safe. And really, you know, the benefits are tremendous, once we were installed.
Sir Rick: Yeah. The producers are playing some videos, Mark. We see what happens out there in yards and I think what you’re showing us right there is hey, the value that your product brings because, you know, what we see here with that trailer getting pushed back – those are unreported damages at the end of the day that we don’t know how it happened. Nobody knows it just happened that way.
Mark Keating: That’s right. So, what the biggest benefit that both drivers and owners of our clients tell us, or relate to us, is that it drives accountability. Quite frankly there’s no longer those mystery incidences, or mystery damages that nobody “fesses-up” on and can’t be allocated to a specific individual. And, as a result, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that we find we catch and we can push responsibility back to the individuals that are fundamentally responsible. The last thing a driver wants to do is pick up a trailer and, on the exit, get tagged for something they didn’t do to a trailer. And now they’re responsible for that damage even though they didn’t do it.
Sir Rick: Yeah, and there’s a video that’s getting ready to show right there that showed a truck coming up the driveway, and the clarity of the camera shows that there’s that left vendor, it’s knocked off it’s not there, it shows the damage to that truck and to where you can actually pinpoint to the tractor. You can also look at the trailer number, and I’m telling you I’ve seen it, you can look at a seal number that’s on a trailer as well.
Mark Keating: Absolutely. If we’ve got the right cameras in place, and it really does depend on our client’s needs, we will not only look at a seal to make sure that it’s intact and stuff like that but we can actually record seal numbers and of course, as part of our normal operations between the agents and the artificial intelligence that we have built into the system, we’ll log tractor numbers, we’ll log trailer numbers, we will make sure that the seals are intact and and record that. So that, again, we can drive accountability and make sure that everybody knows that at any given point in time, the information that we’re recording and logging for our clients is accurate and up to date.
Sir Rick: Mark I want to talk a little bit about the security of a driver in a yard, even. You know, when we have the security that you have with the Birdseye Security System, a driver sleeping in a yard, should feel more secure because you definitely have somebody looking out and making sure that those folks that are coming in there should be in there. You have the ability to look at the speed as well on the yard, to notify folks that people are driving too fast for the conditions as well, right?
Mark Keating: Yeah so, fundamentally, if you think about what drivers really care about when they’re near a yard, it’s how fast can they get in and out. And fundamentally, are they going to be safe while they’re on the yard. And, as far as being safe on the yard, there’s a couple different things.
One is: can we enforce and can we monitor for the use of proper safety equipment. And we can. The short answer is, anytime somebody gets out of a truck we can make sure that they are wearing their proper vesting that they’ve got proper footwear on. And, if they’re doing anything on the yard, you’re doing it safely. If they aren’t, we can notify them using two way communication, make sure that they’re aware of that. And fundamentally, keep people safe by ensuring people are operating and acting in a safe manner on site. That fundamentally benefits everybody, drivers for their own personal safety and the owners of the lots from a liability perspective, for sure.
Drive Safe Dave: You know, I look at that. Some of the things that excite me as a former driver are the safety aspect. Actually here at BCB, we encountered a fire in the yard. And, I do like the idea that somebody is monitoring while people are out there sleeping and could react quickly to those kinds of ideas and keep the guys safe when they’re down. They don’t have to worry often, don’t have to worry right away about who’s out there what they’re doing. And, even something so simple as a fire could be started by a lightning bolt or or started by even a truck – trucks can catch fire – and these kinds of things to help keep people safe when they’re here on the yard.
Mark Keating: That’s right. And that does happen and we have caught that. We have protocols in place, specifically with our clients, to address a lot of those kinds of edge cases. Clearly, you know something is as innocuous or as unintended as a fire can be caught. Our agents are monitoring the interior of the yard, they can see that that’s happening. And call first responders right away. But as well I mean stuff that’s a little bit more nefarious. We have clients in high crime areas where we will detect and deter trespassers onto the yard on a regular basis. And that’s not something that a driver wants to have wandering around their truck or trailer either if they’re sleeping on a yard. Or if they’re awake and wandering around, the last thing they want is somebody wandering up and, you know, waving a gun in their face.
Sir Rick: Yes Hey Mark, we got a couple of minutes left here. A couple things I do have for you. Number one, hey, if you do see people come out of a trailer, let’s just call it 911 or Homeland Security.
When the driver, checking in – trying to come into the yard – and you’re talking about, talking about the security vest right that they should have on. What are you doing to enforce that and how does the driver know? Does the driver just sit there wait for the gate to come open and it never opens up? How are you talking to them about that?
Mark Keating: No, so the way that we do gate operations is we have a two way communication and a couple different cameras. When the actual driver rolls up to the gate we’lll actually greet them, our live agent will actually greet them through the two way communication and ask them to put up their ID up into the ID-verify box. And, their ID will be matched against their own face. And, if they happen to not be wearing proper PPE, then we will let them know that they need to go and put on their vest, or more often the case, that they need to put on proper footwear before we can let them into the actual yard.
Similarly, if they haven’t done proper pre-trip inspection, or any of those kinds of things that our clients would require prior to exiting the yard, we can monitor for that and actually deny exit to the yard, should a driver really have just skipped that entirely or done it inappropriately or less than thoroughly.
Sir Rick: Alright! Hey Mark, I want to thank you again for being part of the BCB Live. Hey, what’s the best way, should somebody want to get in contact with you?
Mark Keating: Listen, our website is probably our best asset https://birdseyesecurity.com. If somebody wants to reach out to me directly, funny enough, both Mark dot Keating and marketing at Birdseyesecurity.com work. Basically, the same thing right?
Sir Rick: That’s the greatest name ever! I’m going to tell you that right now, the greatest name ever. Good job. Hey, we appreciate what you’re doing for security for safety, as well, throughout the yards across America. Hey, keep it up, we love that kind of stuff here BCB live. Hey Mark, we are the safest station in the nation, and we appreciate what you’re doing. Thank you buddy. Thank you.
Mark Keating: Thank you guys,
Sir Rick: Man! Drive Safe Dave, that’s just that’s pretty slick, right? That’s some amazing items there. That I like from a driver’s perspective. To be able to sleep out in the yard, I just think it makes you feel a little better.
Drive Safe Dave: Absolutely, and also to know that somebody is there. Most of the time we do what we do right, right? And we want to make sure that everybody around us is doing right. And, even if you’re asleep in a bunk, your trailer can be hit, your truck can be hit, and if somebody is not acting right and not doing what needs to be done out there, you want it addressed because they’re just making it difficult for you to do your job. And, I appreciate that, on every aspect, speeding through yards and doing those kinds of things are very, very good. I think this is neat technology. I think it’s the way the future, don’t you believe that?
Sir Rick: It’s the way of the future. Yes sir, great point.