Ryder and Terminal industries pilot program addresses operating gains in yards through AI

Last week, Miami-based freight transportation and logistics services provider Ryder System Inc., and Terminal Industries, a developer of AI platforms focused on digitizing yard operations, announced a collaboration on a pilot program that brings together advanced computer vision with machine learning to optimize yard operations and working through pain points.

The companies kicked off the pilot in January at a Ryder e-commerce fulfillment center in City of Industry, Calif. By leveraging Terminal’s computer-vision technology used to analyze trucks moving into and out of Ryder’s yard, they said they have processed more than 10,000 truck detections, equating into 99% accuracy through the capturing of license plates and Department of Transportation numbers. They also rolled out a second pilot program in July, leveraging Terminal’s technology platform on mobile tablets to auto capture available inventory at a Ryder truck rental and maintenance facility in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

What’s more, they added that in order to compensate for errors that are commonly seen in recording this type of data, the companies explained that Terminal’s computer-vision technology uses machine learning through the addition of incremental knowledge to continuously improve, coupled with integration with third-party databases providing fell vehicle profiles extending beyond what cameras can see.

Mike Placensia, group director of new product strategy for Ryder and managing director of RyderVentures, the company’s corporate venture capital fund, said in an interview that in many yards today, operators are still manually recording license plate, DOT, and trailer numbers and plugging them into a database.

“They’re ensuring trucks have appointments and are hauling the correct trailers, and they’re responsible for keeping accurate inventory of available vehicles and trailers,” he said. “Add to that, they’re battling bent license plates, hand-written DOT numbers, bright lights or inclement weather obscuring vision, and any number of other real-world scenarios. This manual process can lead to incorrect inventories, bottlenecks, delays, increased driver and labor costs, and idle assets. Last summer, we invested in Terminal through our corporate venture capital fund RyderVentures, and with that, came a strong appetite to work with them on piloting and helping them prove out their technology.  It was a prudent decision as the team rewarded us with a successful pilot and a healthy pipeline of use cases to further endeavor.”

Terminal CEO Max Constant said that the yard is part of the end-to-end supply chain, with chat potentially having cascading effects up and down the chain, adding that anytime Terminal can bring greater efficiency to the supply chain, it’s a benefit for Ryder and its customers.

Constant said that this is a core technology that can be applied across many use cases versus a point-source solution, which has a narrow focus for specific applications.

“For example, in California, we’re using the technology to analyze and index moving vehicles as they enter and exit Ryder’s yard,” said Constant. “In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we’re using the same core technology at a truck rental and maintenance yard, but we’re using it on mobile tablets that are recording information from stationary trucks. Two very different use cases for the same core technology. We’re also working on two other pilot programs using Terminal’s technology for other novel use cases.”

While many computer-vision technologies require special cameras, hardware, and infrastructure improvements, which can be costly and time intensive to implement and also severely limit scalability, Constant said Terminal’s technology integrates with existing or off-the-shelf security cameras and technologies with built-in computing that connect to the cloud.

“It’s cost effective, feasible, and scalable, and with Ryder’s 700-plus yards with varying layouts and operational needs, that is key,” he said. “Simplifying technology and consolidating it across supply chains is important. The industry is moving away from point-source solutions and toward holistic core-tech. Buy once, use a thousand times vs. buy a thousand times. Saves time and effort on pilots, integrations, training, multiple screens, etc. For an organization like Ryder that has hundreds of yards, standardization is key.”

In terms of how the pilot program functions in a yard setting to solve problems and drive efficiency, Terminal’s Constant stated that Terminal’s technology uses computer vision to identify and automatically index and analyze trucks, trailers, chassis, and containers flowing in and out of the warehouse yard, using commodity cameras and tablets. It also uses machine learning, which he said adds incremental knowledge to continue to improve over time, and extending the understanding of the yards and, by extension, the use cases.

“Additionally, integration with third-party databases provides full vehicle profiles beyond what cameras can see; this is part of the enrichment of data which contributes to the high accuracy rate and applicability of use cases. It’s a differentiator in the market,” said Constant. “One benefit of the technology is that it eliminates two areas where mistakes can happen with manual yard processes: recording numbers on paper and then keying them into a database. So, this is a powerful tool for yard operators that can not only provide value on an individual yard, but across all yards in a given network.”

Moving forward, Ryders Placensia said that, given the success of the initial pilot, the next step is focusing on taking both the learnings and playbook and moving past the pilot and into commercial production.  And he added that the next step is focusing on taking both the learnings and playbook and moving past the pilot and into commercial production. 

“We’re also looking forward to the results from our second pilot project at the truck rental and maintenance yard in the Dallas-Fort Worth,” he said. “It’s already promising. And, we have two other pilot projects on the horizon with two additional novel use cases. We’re looking forward to exploring what other areas where we can leverage Terminal’s core technology to bring that value to Ryder customers.”