Hey, this is Paul Comfort.

Welcome to the Transit Unplugged podcast.

We're excited to bring to you every week a discussion with a

top public transportation leader from somewhere around the world.

Today is no exception.

We bring you an interview with Eric Van Wagenen.

Eric is one of the CEOs of one of America's largest public

transportation contracting companies.

Five of them have formed an association called the North American TransitAlliance.

It used to be six of them, but First Transit, as you know, was acquired

by TransDev, so it's TransDev MV Transportation, based in Dallas, and

then there's a company that was called National Express, which is now called

WeDriveU, that's the company that Eric is the CEO of, and then you've

got RATP Dev and Keolis, As the other couple companies and they represent,

quite a few drivers across the country.

They have around 70, 000 employees, between them and 600 cities and

46 states and 5 provinces and they do contracted transportation.

So Eric Van Wagenen is president and CEO of one of those companies he

tells us about the recent name change.

Eric actually worked for a company called WeDriveU for over 16 years and

was their CEO and President, and then that company was acquired by National

Express, and he took over as the President and CEO about two years ago,

and now they've just renamed the company.

Eric and I talked in person in Dallas at a meeting of the North American

Transit Alliance, where he discussed, His company, the roles that contractors

can play working with public transit agencies around the country and also

what the future holds, he believes, some of the top trends in our industry.

It's a great interview.

I hope you enjoy it.

If you do enjoy it, leave us a review.

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com, leave us a review.

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If you'd like me to answer a question for you, or you want me to ask a

question to a future leader on an interview, drop me a note at paul.

comfort at transitunplugged.

com.

Now let's join the interview we did live and in person in

Dallas with Eric Van Wagenen.

Great to be with Eric Van Wagenen, the President and CEO of WeDriveU.

formerly known as, can I say that, National Express?

Erick Van Wagenen: Absolutely.

Yeah,

Thanks for doing the podcast, man.

Erick Van Wagenen: No, thank you for having me.

I've been waiting to do it for a while.

Let's talk about National Express and the transition to the new

name and, and contracting in general some today and then your background.

So why don't we start with National Express and kind of tell us who you

are, what you're doing and all that.

Just give everybody an outline of that.

Erick Van Wagenen: Sure.

So I'll, I'll start with a little bit more global perspective, right?

So National Express is the company that, was operating in the UK

originally, then continued to grow and build over the last 10, 15 years.

And then wanted to diversify in terms of being able to do more than

what they originally did in the UK, which was just white coach service,

bringing people in and moving them around, around the United Kingdom.

So they have operations in Spain, Dubai, Morocco, Germany, as well

as here in the US and Canada.

So, what do you do?

Tell us about what your company does.

Erick Van Wagenen: Sure.

Provide shared mobility solutions for communities, workplaces,

campuses, and employers.

Like here in Dallas, I'm sitting here right now looking

at the light rail, the largest light rail network actually in the country.

But they contract out a bunch of the work and so do a lot of, actually

most transit agencies in the U.

S.

They've made a decision that they want to focus in on some things and

other things they'd rather outsource it to people who are experts in it.

Sometimes it's paratransit, sometimes it's campus work, sometimes it may be a new

Maybe a new, pilot that they want to try.

Like, I want to dip my toes in a battery electric or

hydrogen electric or autonomous.

And there's big companies like you guys have already done it, right?

I mean, that's what's going on here.

Erick Van Wagenen: Yeah.

That's one of the things we do is we like to support people that

want to try to get out of, that can gain knowledge and leverage the

capabilities of somebody that's done, been there and done that before.

Yeah.

Erick Van Wagenen: I think one of the things that's really great is the

fact that we do operate in all these different locations and we do kind

of operate independently at all those different locations, but we gobble

up all that information centrally.

And we try to leverage it across all of our network in terms of customers,

but also in terms of new customers and our expansion and growth opportunities.

What would you say differentiates, uh, your company

from, there's a lot of companies that do this type of work.

So, there's many companies that are in the business, some multinational, some

just American, some smaller, what people might call affectionately mom and pops.

That's what I used to call them, you know, when I was working at WMATA.

Washington Metro, where you guys have operations now, because

you all bought Diamond there.

Erick Van Wagenen: I think the key for us is really that entrepreneurial

spirit, as you talked about Diamond.

That's a company there that was really, They, they were really focused on the

establishment of the ADA, legislature too.

one of the gentlemen that works for us was there for the signing too.

Yeah, Robbie Wirth, right?

Robbie's my man.

I love that guy.

Erick Van Wagenen: What's fantastic is we still have that running throughout

a lot of our operations, that same entrepreneurial spirit, because they

were mom and pops that we brought in and connected to the rest of the organization.

Yeah.

Erick Van Wagenen: I think that's one of the things that makes it different for us

because when we look at the solutions, we look or look at the problems, we can come

up with all sorts of different solutions.

And while we may operate independently, like I said, all these different

locations with that same entrepreneurial spirit, everybody works together

in a collaborative approach.

And so I think we've been able to really leverage that entrepreneurial spirit

while laying on a customer success, approach to our, to our customers.

We try to leverage all of the knowledge and.

And take aways from all of the different locations, bring those forefront to

the customer so that way we're not trying to recreate the wheel, but yet

we have all this great knowledge and information coming in from other areas.

That's awesome.

and uh, so you still are connected to the To the UK mothership.

Erick Van Wagenen: Yes, we are.

Absolutely.

That's good.

and uh, here in the United States, so you mentioned that

you had a background at WeDriveU.

Erick Van Wagenen: Yeah.

Talk us through all that a little bit.

How did you get into all this?

Erick Van Wagenen: Yeah, so 18 years ago I joined WeDriveU.

Okay.

Erick Van Wagenen: 18 years ago this month actually, so.

Quite a bit of time.

I started off as a assistant general manager.

So it was a great opportunity for me to get into the business.

And we looked at that, we looked at transportation a

little bit differently, right?

We were serving private individuals, basically being a staffing company

for people that wanted drivers.

So we were looking at this kind of a little bit of a unique scenario, right?

We didn't have any vehicles.

We were just trying to be a really high quality service.

And really nimble in terms of what the customer's needs are

because we were supplying people.

And they were trying to match the right people to the

right, to the customer, right?

So our employees, we were trying to figure out, how do you fit with helping to

serve this customer and meet their needs?

and I think that's one of the things that's really been helpful for me

in my career as we've continued to grow and build and expand and

take on different opportunities.

I've kept that same focus of trying to figure out how do we, how do we meet

our, the expectations of the customer with our people and our services and

our products that we offer to them?

and it's been, it's been a great ride for me.

Being able to go from assistant general manager to CEO of We Drive U that I'm

being now part of a larger organization to being the president and CEO of We Drive U

which is now over what used to be National Express Transit as well as other entities.

Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit about trends that you see happening.

I mean, you are part of a multinational organization that provides transportation

services all over the world.

What do you see as some of the, the most pressing challenges for industry?

Erick Van Wagenen: I mean, we're still trying to get out of COVID.

I think that's one of the biggest challenges for everybody.

The impact was pretty significant, right?

And it created a lot of challenges for organizations to try to

claw their way out of it.

And so, I think we've come out of, we're finally in like what we

feel like is a normal pattern now.

We're starting to see, you know, get back to what would be

a reasonable level of growth.

We were starting to see some passenger volumes grow at regular levels.

so that's been the biggest challenge that's not just felt here in the U.

S., but that's been globally.

there's been better recovery in other countries across the

world, than it has been here.

And so I think we've been able to learn a few of the things that other

countries have been able to do.

And that's been good.

and then I think the other challenges too is just electrification.

as we talk about our, our, our challenges as a, as a global group.

The cost of capital to be able to do these types of infrastructure

projects, to be able to buy the buses, to be able to get them to operate.

It's almost to a point of being net neutral, right, where you're able

to get your total cost of ownership to almost the same price of what a

conventional vehicle would be, but it's not quite there yet and it's

requiring much more upfront investment.

So that is one of the biggest challenges for us as a larger group, outside

of just recovering out of COVID.

let's talk about the OEM crisis here in the U.

S.

and Canada.

Actually, I was just up at the Canadian Urban Transit Association Conference

in Halifax, and they're having similar issues up there, is that, especially

on the battery electric side, there's like, you got to stand in line

for a while to get a vehicle now.

Erick Van Wagenen: Yeah, and it's also in just the challenges some

of the manufacturers here in the U.

S.

have had to as well.

You're starting to see with parts supplies and stuff like that.

And so, you know, we're definitely faced with that in some of our operations

where, where we can't get the vehicle, the parts for the vehicles to be able

to operate in their electric vehicles.

So.

it is absolutely a problem and it's not going to get, it's not going to make

the vehicles any less expensive too, which is going to make this the global

challenge for us in terms of getting those vehicles in place much harder.

So let's talk about innovation.

What are some of the big innovations coming at National Express, now

WeDriveU, but, but National Express globally is, that you're seeing?

Erick Van Wagenen: it's really the safety technology, right?

So the AI, the things like that, that are helping to improve

the driver's performance.

There's always been something there to help the drivers, to

monitor them, to then retroactively get them to be a better driver.

But now you're actually getting more proactive, proactive tools

to help those drivers be better.

So things you'd see in your normal car, like lane departure, and you're starting

to see like the forward collision warning.

So even if it's not installed on the bus originally, you can retrofit it.

You can have other tools installed too, as well, to be able to help the

drivers become better, to keep them and avoid them from getting in an

accident or doing something else.

So instead of just Trying to correct past behaviors.

We're actually able to coach them in real time and help them

do their jobs more effectively.

That's interesting.

Yeah, because normally in the past we've had drive cam and things like that and

what your score was you'd get talked to when you got back, but this is different.

Erick Van Wagenen: All of it's great, right?

But there there's a reason why accidents happen is because people

are driving the vehicles and people can make a simple mistake.

You can just lose focus for a minute.

You can look to the left when you should be looking right.

And if you have something there to help you, to aid you and assist you

to get you to back to looking right when you should, when you should

have been to, to avoid that accident.

That is, that's pretty powerful.

Where do you see the industry going?

Let's just use a global thing.

I said we, you mentioned, you know, getting out of the pandemic

and a lot of agencies are up to 70, 80 percent of pre pandemic.

Some of them are better than that, but we've had big challenges, not just in the

vehicles, but in the fiscal cliff coming up and the ability to hire and recruit

drivers and mechanics, skilled mechanics.

A lot of them retired during the pandemic.

Where do you see us headed as an industry, right now?

Erick Van Wagenen: Well, I do think outsourcing is an opportunity for these

agencies to help get themselves out of some of these challenges, right?

We're talking about, the talent pool that's dried up, potentially, or changed,

where we have the ability, where we can bring in people from different areas,

where we can set up our own training programs, we can help develop the

talent and grow it within the industry.

And I think leveraging contractors like us is really important for them.

Now let's talk about tertiary contracting.

A big thing that's happened across the U.

S.

I've seen is the rise of companies like Uber and Lyft, Userv, SilverRide, others.

These are companies that are privately for profit companies, like you are,

that come in and they don't drive the agency vehicles or big dedicated

vehicles, but they drive non dedicated kind of like their own cars, right?

Are you seeing a place for them in this ecosphere?

Erick Van Wagenen: I do, yeah.

We actually work with a number of them to be able to try to

support some of the operations.

So again, as we've come out of the pandemic, the opportunity

for us to look at these services differently has been important for us.

And if they can reduce the expense and it may be more efficient, they can provide a

better level of service to the end user.

I think it's great.

I think it's good to have innovation in an industry like this.

Yeah, and it attracts, the way one of them described it to me,

the guy that owns Silver Ride told me one time, Paul, we're attracting a whole

different, genre of drivers because they don't have to go into a place, check

in in a uniform, work for eight hours.

It's more like Aunt Susan who can, you know, work for three hours

in the morning while her kid's in kindergarten or something like

that, driving her own car, right?

Erick Van Wagenen: Well, exactly.

The opportunity to open up your, open up the pool of drivers that weren't,

we didn't have availability to before in terms of serving the customers, the

passengers, is, is fantastic, right, because you can get some really.

Really cool, really, really, well focused people and trying

to serve and help the community.

Erick, you mentioned that one of the big things that WeDriveU is

focused on is campus transportation.

And that's not something we've focused a lot on on this podcast

before . Tell us about that and the role so I'm on a college campus.

I mean, that's pretty big, right?

To be able to get around because a lot of kids don't have their cars there.

Erick Van Wagenen: No, college campus transportation is really important, right?

And college campuses may not be served very well by public transportation.

And so a lot of them have had to go out and set up their

own transportation systems.

Okay.

Erick Van Wagenen: And while they may be privately funded, there you're

generally open to the public too as well.

Oh.

Erick Van Wagenen: So you effectively end up running a publicly, a publicly,

supported or, or supporting the public with private funding to be able to do.

That's interesting.

Erick Van Wagenen: one of the ones that we really, that we've really enjoyed

operating has been Princeton University.

Princeton in New Jersey?

In New

Erick Van Wagenen: Jersey.

Oh, wow.

And so, their system really, really supports not only the student body as well

as the, the faculty and everybody else, the staff, but also the local population.

Because it is so wide, it's such a big part, an integral part of the community.

Princeton, obviously, it's right there in the middle of it and

they serve, yeah, they serve as such an integral part of getting

everybody around, such a large area.

How does that work?

Like a student will show their ID and they get to ride for free because it's

part of their student fees or whatever?

Erick Van Wagenen: Everybody rides for free.

Everybody rides for free.

Yep.

Wow, that's something.

And the college pays for it all.

That's pretty good.

And that's happening in a lot of campuses, right?

Erick Van Wagenen: You see a lot of that, yeah.

Or you see some places where you say, wait, supplemented, right?

Where the college may be paying for the students to ride or the faculty

to ride and then they have to charge the general public, but at least they

give the opportunity for the public to be able to get served in a way.

If they may not be able to be served otherwise.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the future where we're going to wrap up our interview.

I know that, so I've got a new book out, the, called The New

Future of Public Transportation.

It's all these cutting edge trends.

One of them is hydrogen fuel cell buses.

Yeah.

That, this last winter, a bunch of locations in Canada and the northern U.

S.

were concerned about the ability to charge their vehicles and get a lot of

mileage out of them with one charge.

And so they're looking at these other things.

are you all looking at like alternate fuels like that around the world?

Erick Van Wagenen: Absolutely, yeah.

Hydrogen is a big part of our strategy going forward, although

there are challenges with it.

and so I think what we have to do is make sure we try to, we try to align the

right fuel system and the right, right, energy system to the vehicle needs or

to the, to the transportation needs.

And so, it hasn't been something that you think is, it's not going

to be widespread because there's not a use for it everywhere, and the

cost structure may not be, supported in terms of running the operation.

But we want to make sure we have a good understanding and knowledge base

of all those different fuel systems.

I've got one more question for you.

What about inflation and the impact of inflation on costs and

how does that impact contractors?

So let me just give you an example.

Cause I used to work in the private sector.

I worked for MV, one of the big companies in Washington, DC.

We had a set price.

And it was based on what we thought the wages were going to be and

other things were going to be.

and then we know what's happened in the last couple of years.

Things have gone through the roof.

I mean, a lot of places have had to raise wages, you know, a lot.

Five, seven dollars an hour in order to attract because it's very difficult.

So how does all that work in the contracting world?

Erick Van Wagenen: Well, we've definitely not, we have not been immune to that

either, so we've had to deal with that.

One of the things we've been very successful with those being a strong

partner with many of the agencies or customers that we work with, and

they've, they've also reciprocated by being strong partners back, right?

And so us being very transparent and understanding the labor market and

working with them has helped us put it, put ourselves in a position to

be able to not only compensate the employees, but also make sure that

we are able to then get compensated in return to be able to run the

operations effectively and sustainably.

Yeah, that thing, that same thing has happened in

the bus manufacturing industry now.

FTA came out with some new rules, APTA guidelines came out, recommendations about

basically when you buy a bus, because it may take two or three years to finish

it, the price that was bid may not be the price that ends, so you have to have

some inflators or deflators in there.

so, I think it's just.

what you're talking about then is just being flexible with

what the real environment is.

Erick Van Wagenen: Yeah, I think it, yeah, it is flexibility, right?

And it's communication.

I think that's one of the things that you'll see from most of the

contractors in this industry is that they do a really good job of

communicating and engaging with those, with the, the agencies they work with.

And if they don't, they're not going to be in business for very long, right?

Because that, because that's the benefit of outsourcing is you get that

partnership, you get a sounding board, you get a chance to communicate with somebody

that has potentially more information or different experiences than you do.

Right.

And therefore, if you don't do it well, it's not going to work,

and I think most of the agents, most of the contractors in the U.

S.

do do it well.

That's great.

What a great way to end it.

Eric Van Wagenen, President and CEO of WeDriveU, and we wish you the very best of

success, you and your 5, 000 employees who are out there every day on the front lines

delivering the service that moves America.

Erick Van Wagenen: I appreciate it.

It's been fun.

Thank you.

Hi, this is Tris Hussey, editor of Transit Unplugged.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode with our guest Erick Van Wagenen.

CEO of WeDriveU.

Now coming up next week on the show, We have something pretty special.

We have an interview with Adam Leishman.

CEO of Pravo holdings.

Operators of city bus and Bravo media.

From Hong Kong.

Now Hong Kong is one of the top three cities.

If maybe the top city for public transportation in the world.

But we've never talked to anyone from Hong Kong.

So next week, You get to hear a hall about this amazing transport system where

get this nine out of every 10 trips.

In Hong Kong are taken on public transit.

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