TruckRight: Revolutionizing Trucking Compliance and Efficiency | An Interview with Dirk Kupar

For more information about TruckRight, click here!

A discussion between Chris Harris, aka Safety Dawg, and Dirk Kupar from TruckRight. The conversation explores the inception and evolution of TruckRight, a digital platform designed to manage truck drivers and ensure their compliance with transport regulations. In the dialogue, Dirk explains how TruckRight integrates with other systems, protects data with encryption, and enhances convenience for truck drivers by offering remote access to pertinent documents. TruckRight's future prospects, including a national certification, are also discussed.

Contact Dirk Kupar
dirk@truckright.com
613 968 3323
For more information about TruckRight, click here!

John Farquhar
Summit Risk Solutions: summitrisksolutions.ca
1 226 802-2762
John@summitrisksolutions.ca


Chris Harris
Safety Dawg Inc: safetydawg.com
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
1 905 973 7056

Transcript

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 0:01

This week on the Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast, we have Mr. Dirk Kupar from TruckRight joining us. Unfortunately, um, Johnny was not able to make it this week. We had a scheduling conflict, and to boot, we had some technical software difficulties. So, this particular recording was done in Zoom, and that makes it a little different and interesting. So, Dirk Kupar, TruckRight, and Dirk's info is in the show notes down below. Join us this week. Dirk Kupar from TruckRight spends his time with the Safety Dawg. Dirk, welcome to the trucking risk and insurance podcast. I'm excited to have you on. This is, um, as a result of the Quebec, uh, truck show. Or the truck show that happens just outside of Montreal every year. That was the last time I actually saw you and we had a brief conversation. So good of you to join me today on the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 1:12

Well, Chris, first of all, thank you for, uh, inviting me to be on here today. A little bit about Dirk, um, being in the transportation industry since the early eighties, um, was originally an owner operator with a moving company, Atlas Van Lines. And from there, the journey took us into, 1993. Um, it started off with our own trucks. We had about 12 trucks of our own back then, and then we turned it into a driver's service. And eventually got out of having our own trucks and the driver service grew quite, quite significantly over the years. And then in 2022, so last December, um, we transferred any of the remaining drivers that work for us to the fleets that they were leased onto. So, um, getting out of the driver space and then TruckRight uh, which we'll talk a little bit about more a little bit later. Uh, TruckRight was a platform that originally was designed to manage our drivers.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 2:21

So. And it has, TruckRight has grown immensely and obviously it's where you spend all your energy now. Tell us a bit about TruckRight

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 2:34

what is it? Well, Truck Raid, initially when we were building it was for us to manage our drivers across Canada because we had locations all over the place and we basically wanted a way to interact with people remotely. Drivers live everywhere. Rarely do they live close to your terminal. Us being an agency was no different than a, than a trucking company. We had drivers, we had compliancy things that we needed to keep up to date. So we created a portal that. between us and the drivers, they could apply online, fill out an application. They could do their orientation in our software. Um, we manage their driver qualification files in our platform and the drivers can frankly log in whenever they want, get their pay stubs, get whatever they, whatever they need out of their, uh,

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 3:20

out of their portal. And then how did it grow into the platform that it is now? Because if I was a trucking company, I believe that I can subscribe to TruckRight. Is that

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 3:32

correct? It is. So we originally were building it for us, and then we turned it into a platform that can be used by fleets. And that was because, frankly, we told fleets what we were doing and how we had an online application and the whole process. They said, well, Dirk, we think we might like that. So we went ahead and changed the program a little bit to make unique databases, and I don't want to get technical, but being able to silo each trucking company into their own secure encrypted database was the next bit of the task. But frankly, it was, they thought we were onto something and 10 years later, we are, I guess.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 4:14

Well, since it's providing you with a living, I would have to say yes it

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 4:18

is. And I would like to add to that. And 60 full time Canadian here in the city of Belleville, some remote, but everybody working for us, 60 families are being supported by this as well.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 4:34

Yeah, which is awesome. And I know you do a lot of work with, uh, truckload carriers as well. Um, you're a huge supporter there. One of the things that you had mentioned just Briefly earlier, uh, when you said you silo each trucking company into their own thing, you mentioned the word encryption. I just want to let you expand on that. How important is encryption today in this world of privacy and computers getting hacked?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 5:03

I think... There isn't anybody going to be listening to this that has not heard of some sort of data breach or cyber security word or, so we, um, it is paramount. We, we are, um, very cognizant of all of the regulations across North America. Uh, we recently, uh, completed getting ourselves into place for Quebec with the new law 25 for privacy, which is similar to the European Union, California with already done, so just making sure that because we handle basically HR records for, there's over a million driver profiles in our platform, and it's important that There's drug test results, there's workman's comp information, there's people's personal information. So keeping it secure is

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 5:55

number one. And one, if I was in your database, I would thank you for that because, you know, with my home address and my driver's license, a hacker can do a lot of damage to me. So for the encryption part of it, I thank you. And just to highlight, you said you are compliant in all of Canada. Including Quebec and the United States, including California. Is that right?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 6:22

I did.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 6:23

Yes. Okay. Well, just in case, in case people are listening, they go, Hmm, did he say that?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 6:31

It is, uh, it, it is a mouthful to say, but it is in our space. We just have to stay on top of this.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 6:38

Well, and you've got to make sure that, as you say, you're on top of it, that you're compliant in all the different jurisdictions that you are operating in. I mean, that's hugely important. Trucking companies are trusting you with their private and confidential information, and they expect you to be compliant.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 6:59

And one step further on that, Chris, some of the bigger fleets that we do business with and very, very large fortune 100 companies, not only do they expect it, but they actually pre audit before they allow, before they give us the data to begin. So we've been audited by some very high profile name companies that your audience would be familiar

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 7:19

with. Well, and that's them doing their due diligence because they owe it to their employees and drivers to protect their information. Yes, I

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 7:30

totally agree. How does

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 7:32

it, how does truck right make it easier for truck drivers?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 7:38

I, I, I think the, the, the number one thing is, and what's in it for me is like how I always think of it from my trucking days is, There's times where your driver's license come undue, your pay stubs, whatever you want to interact with the office, but you're not in the office. Right. With our platform, the drivers can log into the portal anytime they want. They want to see an old pay stub, they want to see if they're an owner operator, if they want to see their old monthly maintenance reports. All of it's visible to them inside the portal. So that's the biggest thing for the drivers is being able to access their information that's on file. Um, and even update. Um, maybe, maybe all of a sudden they want to bring a pet in the, uh, in the truck and they need, uh, their company has a pet policy. They can just go in and self assign a pet policy document, fill it out, and it automatically goes to the right person in the company.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 8:32

All right. So you have policy and procedure manuals as well online for each individual company?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 8:37

We do. They can create, and vast majority of them have, their health and safety manuals are right inside our platform. That way the driver can see it, read it from anywhere.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 8:50

This is something I've been, um, really trying to get my clients on board with because having that the old binder with all the papers printed out does not make, um, searching it very easy. Where I imagine digitally, I can type in a word or two and quickly find the policy that I'm trying to reference.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 9:13

Not only that, you can change a policy in the system and update it and it goes out to everybody. evenly, equally, and you can have a separate policy for owner operators, separate policy for company drivers. Maybe you have a union division and a non union division. The system is intuitive enough and intelligent enough to make sure that when, when a new policy is being created, it goes to the appropriate people.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 9:41

That's cool. I just want to go back a little bit to the owner operator. Uh, you mentioned them and they are keeping at least some of the records on, uh, the TruckRight platform. How does that benefit the owner operator exactly?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 9:57

Well, because the owner, there's, and there's two or three major things that are in there. Um, so if, uh, let's say an owner operator is leased onto a trucking company and they, let's say they're a small fleet owner and they have multiple trucks and multiple drivers, they actually have a compliance dashboard where they can monitor the compliance of their own drivers that are leased onto that company as well. Um, monthly maintenance reports, they can do it off a smartphone or a tablet. Um, and their monthly maintenance reports there, they can put their receipts. Um, into their file and have access to it going forward. Again, same as, um, same as the, the employee driver. Anything that's in their file, they can, they can get back at and take a look. And just some people will say, well, Dirk, I don't want drivers looking at stuff in their files or, or changing things. Once the doc, once something in the TruckRight reviewed by the fleet, It kind of locks it so that the driver can't change it. So the driver can go back in and look at it, but they can't go, Oh, I want to take this out of my file because I don't want them to have it anymore. It doesn't work that

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 10:57

way. I mean, I can't get rid of that warning letter that I received.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 11:01

Come on, you can see it, but you can't get rid of it.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 11:07

Wow. That's what I mean. I just see it, um, when you're talking about the owner operator, I see it as a huge bonus for the owner operator at tax time, for example. Um, to have all my receipts in one place, I had to give them to my, um, my company that I'm signed on with anyways. And now everything's in one place, so it should make it easier for tax time, I would think.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 11:31

There's that. The safeties can be, they're stored in there. Anything to do with their equipment can be, is stored in there. And just a little, um, nibble of something that's coming to TruckRight. Um, but don't, it's between you and I. Please don't share this information. Is, is we are actually working on a project that should be out early next summer where licensing and virtual permit books will be a part of TruckRight

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 12:01

ah, that's exciting. Yes.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 12:05

But don't tell anyone, it's between you and I. Yeah, okay.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 12:09

We won't let the, uh, hundreds of millions of people that listen to this, so I don't have quite that large of an audience, but, uh, they will be interested. Now, how difficult is the whole TruckRight system to install?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 12:24

So there's nothing to install. It's really, uh, it lives in our servers. Our Canadian clients, their data is stored here in Canada. Our American clients, their data is stored in the United States. So, we run in a very large data center called Azure, which is part of the Microsoft ecosystem. We're managed by TELUS. manages the, the security of our platform. And I guess I can say they're also a client. So, um, they're, they're, they're line drivers are all in our platform, but, um, it's just really, um, I'm going to have to pause my thought and let you go because I've lost my train of thought. Sorry.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 13:16

Well, no, it's just, we were talking about how easy it is to install. So there really isn't any installation. Correct. It's in the cloud.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 13:25

It's online. Correct. So, and then we Configure it for each new client so they can, the client would have their logos in it. We can actually do the coloring in the platform so that the colors match their corporate colors. So when the driver's interacting with the platform, they're interacting with the client's branding, not TruckRight

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 13:46

branding. Yeah, I, I don't know if you remember, but several years ago, um, it was probably near the launch of TruckRight I was in Belleville and you were good enough to host me. Uh, and, uh, You were showing me one of your customers, um, cause I don't want to drop the name, but I remember a Canadian company, red was the predominant color and it wasn't too far from your offices and it looked like it was their website.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 14:14

It, it, our design is to make. The driver, the continuity of relationship between the driver and their, their carrier. Um, there's really no value between TruckRight branding and the driver. It's important to have, and we designed that right from the very beginning so that the client branding was, uh, we weren't as concerned with our branding as we were with the client to the driver. Yeah. So

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 14:41

you're kind of like a white label product. Um, and I put my brand on it. Exactly. Yeah, because, and people may not know who TruckRight is, but they sure as heck know who their employer is. Exactly. Or we would hope they would. Um, what other integration, or how does TruckRight integrate with other systems?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 15:05

So we have roughly 260 integration partners today. We integrate with telematics. We integrate with driver camera systems. We're the... The biggest two though, would be Dispatch Software and, um, Job Boards. So, um, drivers may see a job on Indeed for example, where they can click a button in Indeed, and their profile that's Indeed automatically fills out the entire application at TruckRight so it's not like, Oh, take me a link over here. Now we've got to type all this information that they already put in deed. They just click a button. It fills out the DOT app if it's a DOT driver. And the, the only thing the driver has to do then is fill out the little pieces that may be missing for a DOT app. And the, the, the workflow makes that quite simple for them. I would

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 15:57

think that would be a huge bonus for your client when they're trying to recruit over somebody else who every drive, every applicant starting from scratch.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 16:07

Yes. No, it is, uh, and we have a feature that allows the driver to kind of have a follow me app. We call it the TrueApp. And the TrueApp is basically, once the driver's created a profile in TruckRight, if they go to another client, when they start applying at that new client, because their data is not shared between clients, but the driver's unique identified information sits in the TrueApp. The driver would then be proposed, Oh, we see this as you, and we would send them a, um, two factor authentication. They put in that code, and it would automatically fill out their application from the database. So they wouldn't have to type it all in again. The

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 16:51

integrations, that works well. To me, that's a huge bonus. Again, if I was a driver applying, or if I'm trying to recruit, to have it done quicker, um, and easier for the driver. It's kind of. Help me recruit

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 17:10

a lot of cl, a lot of our newer clients, um, you go to their website and you see a, b, c trucking and you click for an apply now and you get this download, PDF, or you get a web form that you fill out, which is really just an email with us. When we bring on a client, we actually give the client links. That attach to their websites, when the driver clicks apply now, they're redirected to a branded page of that same company, saying, fill out the online app, and here's a whole listing of all, we have, we're looking for city drivers, we're looking for flatbed drivers, we're looking for mechanics, we're looking, and it's not just for drivers, it's for, for all your staff, uh, but predominantly drivers, obviously, so the driver clicks on which one they're interested in, and they, then they fill out the, um, Fill out the application and that application actually starts building the DQ file, saving them.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 18:07

Go ahead. If I'm an applicant that's already in the TruckRight file, does that pop up and say, Hey, we can fill this in for you? Yes. See, that's, to me, that's awesome. Hey, let's look, uh, three or four or five years in the future. Um, what do you think is going to be happening or what, what's the future for TruckRight?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 18:32

I think the future for TruckRight, as much as I'd like to say that I have the vision, we have an advisory board of fleet members, uh, I think we have 12 or 14 different fleets that are on our advisory board, and they are our steering committee. They come to us with the ideas. What do they think TruckRight should be? So, as much as I would like to say this is how it's going to be, we determined a couple of years ago that Dirk and his team, our team here, it's just one idea. Thank you. With the advisory board, we're having fleets interact with each other. Come, Hey, what about this? What about this? What about the, and that the virtual permit book, it came from the fleets. They wanted it.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 19:14

Well, and nowadays, why, you know, why we can't have ownerships and safeties and, uh, CVR licenses and the DOT numbers, why we can't have all that virtually available. To show the necessary people. I don't quite understand yet, but governments. What else is coming down the pipe three or five years away?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 19:42

I think what we're doing is we're getting into a lot of managed professional services where maybe, especially private fleets, where they want help on the maintenance of what's going on. Um, an example of that is we have. About 10 customers today, and three of them are the largest companies, again I don't want to share names, but um, they're looking for us to ensure the carriers that are hauling their freight, because these are, these are shippers, they're making sure that the carrier is meeting compliance. Right. So, it used to be, put in a bid, lowest bid wins, you haul our freight, well the fleets are saying, now here's a set of standards. Or the shippers, sorry. Here's some standards, and TruckRight is going to be helping us with those standards, um, and part of that is ensuring that the, the drivers are kept in compliance, because again, smaller fleets, they may not have the technical resources in place to do it, but these fantastic mom and pop companies across Canada, Um, are doing work for some of these shippers, and we're just ensuring that all their I's are dotted, T's are crossed. So, that's a new thing for us, and we're going to be expanding that side of the business.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 21:16

Well, I gotta believe for, um, well, we all know what litigation is like here in North America, especially in the States. Yep. And... Um, more shippers are being sued or certainly being involved in lawsuits. And if they can show their due diligence that, Hey, we had TruckRight make sure that the driver files and, and this company was compliant to these standards. Yep. That's going to say a lot.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 21:44

We're, we're actually, and I don't know, we've thought about developing some sort of a, um, a national, um, certification, for lack of a better word, that with TruckRight being able to say, this truck driver is everything that you want from a safety standard, and being able to put a stamp of approval on it, versus mom and pop trucking company says, yeah, he's a good guy. Well, we would be able to back that up with data and facts.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 22:19

It's data and facts that stand up in court. And it's also data and facts that help reduce every company's insurance rates.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 22:28

Oh, yes.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 22:30

So, and just, sorry, go ahead.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 22:33

I just, you, you said insurance. One of the things that insurance companies like about TruckRight is they can log into TruckRight with the fleet's approval. And look at driver files with the fleet's approval, and look at documents in the driver file with the fleet's approval, so they can say, okay, we want to take a look at Chris, and in Chris's file, we want to see his application, we want to see his driver's abstract, we want to see his driver's license, we want to see those things, and the fleet can set some settings in the platform, and give you, give that insurance person, okay, you've got two weeks to look at those driver files, Those are the eight drivers you're going to look at. Here's the seven documents you're allowed to see. The insurance guys log in. They don't even have to come into your office to look at paperwork.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 23:20

And that would be awesome. And plus the insurer now has some faith that these are accurate records. When I used to work for an insurance company, I could see files that I honestly believed were manufactured and not true and accurate.

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 23:40

Our platform has a compliance dashboard that can't be manipulated. I guess somebody, they would be blatantly In the litigation, it would come out that they were lying and fraud, but the vast majority of our clients, the expirations, everything that needs to be done, one dashboard, what's in compliance, right now, most trucking companies, if they get into an accident, the first thing they go, Oh my God, I hope this guy's file is going to look all right. With our system, they don't have to do that. They have a dashboard that tells them that the file is right.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 24:15

Right. Which is perfect. So, now, we've got your contact info in the show notes down below, or how to reach out to TruckRight. Last word, what would you like to leave the audience with?

Dirk Kupar, TruckRight: 24:32

Safety first. It really, as much as I'd like to give you a sales shtick, it really, I really enjoy How much do Canadian companies, American companies are focusing on safety? The more you can focus on safety, um, the better it is for all of our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors. So I'm not going to give a sales tick. I'm going to go with safety first.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 24:59

Safety first. And if you want more information, you can contact TruckRight. Their information is in the show notes down below. What a great interview with Dirk Kupar from TruckRight. And as you can see on the screen here, we have a QR code. You can scan that with your phone and be taken right to get all the information from TruckRight. All right. Thanks so much, Dirk. Appreciate your time. And I appreciate all of your time, the viewers and the listeners. That's it for this week. Johnny should be back next week on the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast. See you soon.