Kristen Rose:
Hey, and welcome back to our V2X vlog series. My name is Kristen Rose. I’m the Marketing Director at GTT. Today we have Craig Carroll, Strategic Sales Director at GTT. Hey Craig, how you doing?
Craig Carroll:
Good, how are you, Kristen?
Kristen Rose:
Good, good. Welcome. So tell us a little bit about your role at G T T and maybe one fun, interesting fact to get us started today.
Craig Carroll:
Role at GTT, director of Strategic Sales, I basically handle more of the larger city initiatives, large public transportation agencies for GTT, some of the more complex this is a, a somewhat complex technology or camera, somewhat complex technology with a lot of moving parts and coordination between traffic agencies, emergency first responder agencies, and public transportation. So with all those interested parties, some of the some of the conversations can get very complex and it is about integrating different systems that each one of these entities use. So that background in, in ability to integrate solutions and different communication systems becomes important. Let’s see. Fun fact about myself. It’s not necessarily a fun fact, fun fact, but it’s, it’s kind of a coincidental fact. About 20 years ago, I’m, I’m New England. New England are born and bred, and I live now in Annapolis, Maryland.
Craig Carroll:
And for those of you who know Annapolis know what’s the home of the, the Naval Academy? Well, out of no specific planning on my part, we ended up, my wife and I ended up moving to Annapolis in 2003, which also happens to be where my father graduated from. So he was an academy grad, so the minute we moved down here, he could actually tell me all the different places to go to. And Annapolis hasn’t changed a long time in 40 years since he’d been here. So it was pretty interesting that he could point out landmarks and places to go and things to do, and people to see and so forth that, that was interesting. So again, being, I grew up a Navy fan and I just ended up living in the town that the Naval Academy happened to be in. So that’s a, that’s a fun fact. A beautiful place to live for those of you who have any interest in coming here.
Kristen Rose:
Cool. Thanks for sharing. Another fun fact about you, Craig, is you’ve actually been with GTT for what, 12, 13 years?
Craig Carroll:
This is my 13th year, yes. I’m, I’m one of the senior, senior employees
Kristen Rose:
Quite tenured. Yes. Quite tenured mean a lot in your time here, I’m sure. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that’s why we’re really interested in your specific outlook on our topic today, which is vehicle to everything technology. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I’m gonna go ahead and kick us off by asking you a question. Can you tell our listeners what is V2X and how has GTT played a role in this space historically?
Craig Carroll:
Well, V2X means vehicle two, anything. Okay. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Yep. There, there are V2I technologies, which is vehicle-to-intersections. There are V2V technologies, which is vehicles to vehicles. But this new world we’re heading into is really V2X, which is V2-Anything. It can be V2I systems, it can be vehicles to intersections and other vehicles. It really is the ability for a vehicle through a standard communication architecture to be able to com communicate and receive very specific information about what is going on around them, what they are doing, who they are, what they are, and so forth. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, so that it is a technology that was created to kind of build a standard on that. Why is GTT in this space? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, GTT has been here. We have been in the V2I technology.
Craig Carroll:
I’m pretty, pretty confident in saying this longer than any other type of technology that’s available. We were using an old technology called infrared with infrared emitters on firetrucks, communicating with infrared receivers at intersections in the late 1960s. And so if you look and see GTT’s heritage is based in the original V2I type of technology. That technology obviously has changed over the years. The use of radio radio systems and GPS coordinates has made the technology more predictable less dependent online of site type of things, and it’s really made it better and smarter and more adaptable. Over the last also decade, we have moved into software-based technologies. And once you start moving into software-based technologies, what you can then start doing is pushing those software applications into a cloud. Mm-Hmm. And by pushing them into the cloud, you now have access to all kinds of information.
Craig Carroll:
And probably the most exciting piece of this, of this adaptation or of this enhancement within the industry is that customers now have the one thing they’ve been asking for, for 20 years, and that is access to information and the ability to take that information and act on it. Yep. So that part of it has really become exciting and that’s why CV2X really was developed. If you created around a standard platform, it allows you to and others to use that platform to deliver data, to get access to information. So our customers can make smart decisions based on information, based on real information, and they can change and improve flow through their cities, improve safety through their cities with real data to make those decisions.
Kristen Rose:
You’re exactly right, Craig, we’re talking about next generation technology here. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Right. And I think one of the cool things that I love about working with GTT is it is an established brand Opticom it’s been around since 1965, you know mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So we have been seen as, you know, legacy creators of the original IR technology for EVP and TSP, but we have migrated to full cloud-based deployments, and now we’re, we’re in the V2X space as well because of the legacy that we hold in this industry, we actually have a footprint of nearly a hundred thousand intersections with our equipment in it. And our goal, as you know, is to migrate those hundred thousand intersections mm-hmm. <Affirmative> to be CV-ready when the customer is ready.
Craig Carroll:
Correct.
Kristen Rose:
Can you tell our listeners how we’re gonna do that?
Craig Carroll:
Okay. We, we have a hun we have presence in a hundred thousand intersections that are out there with a GTT solution of one type or another, or both, or multiple. Right. We also have the same number, if not more vehicles using GTT technology. So as a solution provider to the public sector space, we are obligated to create a path and a, and a not a very difficult path. Yeah. A legitimately plantable path for our customers to move from the technologies that they have today into a CV2X technology. And it really happens in, in two ways or two tracks. I would, I would call it, there is a physical box that GTT has put in an intersection to, to process the decision making and help that controller make the decision to grant or request TSP Correct.
Craig Carroll:
Or EVP one of those technologies. The, that box needs to be upgraded to be able to process CV2X along with everything else. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> today that box can do infrared 50-year-old technology. It still can do it. It’s still backward compatible GPS, radio-based technology. It’s been around for 20 years. Our customers buy it and they love it. Cellular-based technologies, we can support cellular-based preemption and priority request calls and cloud-based software. Correct. Yep. So if we can do that, we take that same box, we make some upgrades to that box, and now it can understand the, the, the rules and logic behind CV2X and it utilizes that capability as well. So we will have a CV2X hub in all of our intersections if necessary. That is also backward compatible to anybody that’s still using IR.
Craig Carroll:
Anybody that’s still using GPS, anybody that’s still using a cellular-based cloud-based solution away from the CV2X, but it’ll handle all. And why that is important is if I’m a DOT and I have to make decisions for my constituents, which are statewide, I know my constituents are not going to be able to move all in one swoop to CV2X technology. I can put the capabilities there, but it is going to take years. Yep. And in some, and in some cases decades for that technology to move. That’s why GTT is committed to that backward compatibility and creating a roadmap for our customers. The other side to that is you can move away from hardware. There are some smart things in, in intersections today. There’s physical devices that have computing power. There’s physical devices that have computing power on vehicles.
Craig Carroll:
It isn’t just fire and transit. They do happen to be the most popular applications and the most sought after applications within the space. Fortunately, GTT has 60 years of that experience, and we understand that, but it’s where it’s going. And, and when you look at it, it in its simplest form, GTT is in the business of being able to identify vehicles and give them specialized treatment at an intersection.
Craig Carroll:
If an agency, a traffic agency, or a, an a DOT a transportation DOT wants to be able to give that treatment, that’s what we do. And it can be anything. It can be an Uber vehicle that happens to be working for a transit vehicle doing last mile delivery with paratransit mm-hmm. <Affirmative> customers and, and those types of applications. So it is, it really is an open standard. It’s a very, very exciting time to be doing this. And GTT is extremely well positioned in this space to be able to do it the right way.
Kristen Rose:
Craig, you’re getting me really excited with this <laugh> listening to, you’re talking about it, I mean, that’s the point of this, right? Yep. To really build some excitement around it. Listening to you talk to, you talk about paratransit, you talk about the Ubers and the Lyfts being able to utilize this technology for mobility on demand. We’re venturing into, into smart city, you’re really looking at this broad network of connectivity. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, it’s not gonna come without its difficulties to deploy it. But one of my key takeaways from what you just said is that when customers are ready, Opticom will be there, right? Yes. Yes. And that is our plan. So that’s what I’m most excited about, is to see Opticom be there and to service our customers the way we have for 65 years. Yes. Craig, I just wanna thank you for your time today. We’ll go ahead and wrap it up. For those of you listening to us, I’ve also linked more information down in the description for this video. Go ahead and click that. If you wanna visit our blog, you can also subscribe to our newsletter for more information. Thanks again, Craig. Thank you everybody. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you everybody.
