Inter-Metro Freight Consolidates Fleet Management Operations into One Connected Platform

Based out of Elizabeth, New Jersey, Inter-Metro Freight, Inc. (IMFI) started in 1983 as an in-house trucking company transporting wine and spirits in the tri-state area. Due to the seasonality of wine and spirits, however, IMFI President, Ralph Ippolito, started branching out IMFI's services to handle other commodities and shippers, including stone and tile freight.

By branching out into these new commodities, IMFI uncovered significant value in handling heavy containers weighing over 80,000lbs. By adding as much freight into the containers as possible, shippers could reduce the number of containers being shipped overseas by up to 35%. With an innovative approach that maximizes cargo weight while decreasing container volume and shipping costs, IMFI found a lucrative model  to complement their existing wine and spirits business. This approach allowed IMFI to expand operations and offer services to freight forwarders, steamship lines, custom brokers, importers, exporters, and freight brokers. Today, IMFI is a leader in port drayage and rail intermodal services, specializing in heavy weight container cargo and serving major ports across the United States.

With a fleet of over 500 trucks spread throughout the country, IMFI needed a centralized, connected platform to manage every aspect of their dispersed fleet while maintaining high standards of accountability and safety. The company needed a solution that could consolidate various aspects of fleet management into one platform, providing real-time insights and improving communication with drivers. This need led them to partner with Forward Thinking Systems (FTS), who equipped their trucks with GPS trackers, vehicle camera systems, ELD, routing, and navigation, all connected by the IntelliHub fleet management platform.

”We were introduced to Forward Thinking Systems through Verizon,” said Brian Kohn, vice-president of Inter-Metro Freight. “FTS was one of the few telematics providers able to commit to consolidating our asset tracking, cameras, ELD, messaging, navigation, and routing all onto one platform.”

FTS equipped IMFI's fleet with the FleetCam Pro vehicle camera system, which included AI-driven road and driver cameras equipped with Advanced Driver Assistance and Driver Monitoring Systems, as well as side-view cameras and an in-cab dome camera. Using footage from each of the different camera channels, the camera system has proven invaluable in reconstructing incidents, particularly accidents involving side merging or rear-end collisions. “Most of these accidents occur from the side merging or from the rear,” said Kohn, “and those rear and side cameras tell the whole story. It's been tremendous from an accountability standpoint.”

The enhanced accountability provided by FleetCam Pro has translated into significant cost savings on insurance claims. “While our insurance company didn’t offer reduced premiums for installing a camera system, they assured us we’d realize significant savings by reducing our claims and payouts. They were right,” Kohn said. “The claims have gone down tremendously, and the drivers now realize that the cameras and electronic logs are in place to support them and often exonerate them when there are incidents or accidents.”

Beyond external cameras, IMFI benefits from the driver-facing AI-driven camera, as well as an in-cab dome camera. The dome camera sits in the corner, giving IMFI a better view of the entire cab and providing additional context when an incident occurs. “The AI driver camera shows the driver,” said Kohn, “but the dome camera shows everything going on in the truck. Is there a passenger? Is the driver reaching down for something when an event happens?”

Drivers were initially wary of the camera system, but once drivers saw how beneficial the system could be for them, buy-in skyrocketed. “These guys have bought in to the point where they're coming in saying. ‘Hey, pull up the cameras. Look at 3:30 this afternoon; you have got to see what happened!’ They love it now.”

Not surprisingly, FleetCam steals most of the spotlight, providing high-profile benefits with each minute of captured footage that reconstructs an accident, exonerates a driver, or supports an insurance claim. The IntelliHub fleet management platform, however, does the yeoman’s work by pulling all of the components together.

IntelliHub has vastly improved IMFI's ability to track and monitor their fleet of trucks, providing real-time insights into the location and activity of their vehicles, improving communication with drivers, and capturing a wealth of vehicle and driver data. “The GPS tracking is just amazing,” Kohn noted, “giving us increased visibility into where all of our assets are at any given time. IntelliHub improved communications with our drivers, too, as we can communicate with them directly through Field Warrior on their tablets.”

Beyond GPS location tracking, Kohn is eager to explore the additional telematics data available through IntelliHub. By connecting to the JBUS port, FleetCam can pull engine diagnostic information and real-time vehicle data directly from the vehicle's Engine Control Unit. This data can then be used to track RPM, vehicle speed, fuel level, odometer mileage, engine run time, and much more.

“That's one area that I haven’t really dove into yet,” Kohn admitted. “I really want to dive into the engine diagnostics and utilize that data. Preventative maintenance is a hot term in our business, and it’s something we have to prioritize given the skyrocketing costs of fleet maintenance.”

Training is a key focus area for IMFI. The company leverages driver events and video clips captured in IntelliHub to enhance training, with plans to integrate DriveShield to empower drivers with more proactive self-coaching tools. The use of video footage has proven highly effective. When drivers see videos related to their accidents in IntelliHub, they naturally want to improve. "They come in and will show you a video where they avoided some incident, and they’re excited,” says Kohn. IMFI also provides individual coaching, using video to highlight instances where drivers are talking on the phone or eating while driving.

“We've created a KPI report where we're monitoring and comparing all of our drivers against each other, driving the KPI threshold down, and addressing it on a case-by-case basis,” said Kohn. For example, Kohn says speeding and distracted directly ties to accidents, so they focus their training efforts on those two key metrics. “We really hammer down on distracted driving and speeding events, and we’ve definitely reduced the number of accidents as a whole.”

Looking ahead, IMFI plans to expand its operations to new markets, including Chicago, Oakland, and Miami. In addition to geographic expansion, IMFI is growing its business in transloading, cross-docking, and warehouse services. “We're sticking to our bread and butter, ocean container transportation, but we're also growing into new verticals like transloading and cross-docking,” Kohn explained.

The partnership with Forward Thinking Systems has been instrumental in helping IMFI manage its operations efficiently and effectively. As IMFI continues to grow and explore new opportunities, the company remains committed to leveraging FTS’s technology to enhance safety, accountability, and operational efficiency. “Any company-owned assets that are within our fleet will certainly be outfitted with Forward Thinking because we love everything you guys are doing, and the partnership as a whole has been awesome all around,” said Kohn.

The collaboration between Inter-Metro Freight and Forward Thinking Systems has proven to be a success, allowing IMFI to streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve driver accountability. With continued growth and new market opportunities on the horizon, IMFI is well-positioned to maintain its leadership in the transportation and shipping industry.