In late December, J. J. Keller & Associates acquired VideoProtects, a small but influential cloud-based video technology provider. Founded and built by Michael Nalepka, John Moscatelli and Gene Emory, the VideoProtects from J. J. Keller product is software-as-a-service that connects fleets to VideoProtects’ onboard cameras and proprietary AI technology that records trigger-based events and recognizes driver fatigue, tailgating, forward collision warnings and other risky driving behaviors.
J. J. Keller announced Tuesday morning the VideoProtects Video Monitoring Service is now available through the Geotab Marketplace, making it available to Geotab customers that operate over 2.4 million vehicles worldwide.
“Our purpose at J. J. Keller is to protect people and the businesses they run,” said Rustin Keller, president and CEO of J. J. Keller. “Video safety technology is one of the most effective tools fleets can use to help keep drivers and highways safe, while also reducing risk for their companies.”
In addition to monitoring the aforementioned safety events, VideoProtects provides triggered notifications for events such as harsh braking, harsh cornering and collisions detected by Geotab’s in-vehicle telematics platform. When risky events occur, VideoProtects alerts drivers and sends video footage combined with event data to the Geotab platform.
The product’s user interface offers analytics and workflow tools to identify for managers areas of risk to better coach drivers. Coaching can take place in person or through a smartphone app.
“J. J. Keller VideoProtects has assembled a world-class team of people to design a cost- effective but capable camera solution that focuses on ease of use and open access to cameras. We look forward to their success on the Geotab Marketplace,” said Neil Cawse, CEO of Geotab.
Nalepka told FreightWaves the product was designed for small and medium-size businesses.
“[It] is giving you all the tools of the expensive high-end products,” he said.
Designed to look and feel like Geotab’s system, and to leverage Geotab telematics data, VideoProtects collects video evidence of incidents or driver behaviors and automatically stores the video clip along with relevant telematics data in a cloud-based database available within Geotab’s cloud, J. J. Keller’s cloud, or a fleet’s own cloud.
“The system is designed first and foremost for fleets that want to manage their own videos and score,” Nalepka said. “However, what’s coming is a video review service option also. For those large fleets that do want video review, we will be offering that as well.”
It is that elimination of the “middleman,” Nalepka said, that makes the VideoProtects product a low-cost yet robust offering for many fleets.
“Geotab’s market — the majority of their market — is the SMB market, meaning five vehicles to 75 vehicles, and a review service for them is way out of their league. They don’t have the time and they don’t need it. If you have 50 trucks, you really don’t need it,” Nalepka said.
To illustrate, he showed a demonstration of the product, including a fleet with about 100 vehicles, that had less than a dozen possible incidents to review over the preceding few weeks. The result is a lower-priced product that is often “less than half the cost” with all the bells and whistles fleets are accustomed to — including alerts, historical data, real-time monitoring, scoring capabilities and communication avenues to review data and coach drivers.
The system also includes a “Court Reporter” trigger that tracks all actions involving a video — who watched it, how many times it was viewed, actions taken and communication tracking.
“There are a lot of safeguards built in … we get it [based on our collective years of experience], we understand how this stuff has to be done in the back office,” Nalepka said, noting he has worked at many of the top telematics companies in the industry since 2004 prior to founding VideoProtects.
All events are represented on an internal dashboard as thumbnails with several key data points, including a 1-4 (4 being an accident occurred) score ranking. Users can open up the image for more detailed information. Videos are approximately 10-second clips.
VideoProtects provides:
- Synched videos to Geotab Go.
- Telematics-triggered recordings based on Geotab’s telematics system.
- Video event review, scoring and coaching.
- Near-real-time safety coaching and driver workflow app.
- Critical event workflow and status workflow.
- Proactive video AI and advanced driving assistance systems.
- Integrated single sign on for ease of use.
- Court Reporter offering a complete audit trail of all logins and activity on platform.
- Video data security in the Geotab, customer or J. J. Keller cloud.
Three service levels are offered — the basic Video Base that includes only road-facing incident recordings, video recall and the Court Reporter functionality; the Video Pro offering that includes both forward-facing and driver-facing camera recording, Geotab event triggers, and scorecards, among other features; and the Video Pro+ that includes all the options in the Video Pro offering but adds a third camera for interior/cargo areas.
Click for more Modern Shipper articles by Brian Straight.
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