Two of the transportation technology industry’s biggest names have come together. Bestpass-Fleetworthy Solutions, which helps fleets manage tolls, safety and compliance, has acquired Drivewyze, which provides a weight station bypass system and in-cab driver safety alerts.
A 2023 partnership between the two companies that aimed to streamline the customer experience for fleets adopting weigh station bypass and toll management services ultimately led to the deal. But Bestpass-Fleetworthy Solutions CEO Tom Fogarty said it wasn’t the impetus for the combination.
He said the rare times Bestpass has lost a relationship has been when a customer opted for a solution that was able to offer multiple products under one umbrella. He said this combination will enable Bestpass to expand its offerings to deter that in the future.
“We were both interested in a bigger combination, but what the partnership did was not only validate our thoughts in that area but even got us more excited about what we could do if we really integrated the solutions, combined the data sets and began producing products that nobody else can touch,” Fogarty said.
Bestpass acquired Fleetworthy Solutions, a provider of fleet safety, compliance, and risk management solutions, last November. The Bestpass Drivewyze combo will operate from a centerpiece safety and compliance platform called CP Suite that Bestpass acquired with its Fleetworthy transaction. It is a single dashboard where customers can view their tolls and will be able to view their bypass and maintenance histories and driver safety qualifications, among other things.
Fogarty said customers of both companies will see the benefits of Drivewyze’s expansive partnerships. He said Bestpass has been a little later to the game in establishing partner relationships, but its recent partnership with Geotab – resulting in toll analytics products – will be accelerated because of Drivewyze’s many integrations. In addition to fleet management services, Drivewyze partners with public agencies to improve commercial motor vehicle safety and compliance solutions with smart infrastructure and connected vehicle systems.
Drivewyze CEO Brian Heath said the company has over 125 partners aimed at pushing the boundaries of what technology can do to solve pain points. With the Bestpass partnership, he said Drivewyze saw the opportunity to move the needle at scale by working together as a combined entity.
“In the short term, Drivewyze is staying as a standalone entity, continuing to deliver its services to our customers,” Heath said. “Tom and I are getting the teams together to really work on how we can integrate our products and services. And there are some fantastic ideas on that side that I think are really going to move the needle.”
Fogarty said upon completion of the acquisition – terms of which were not disclosed – customers will benefit from one solution, one contract and one customer service team. There will be no disruption to existing services and support for Drivewyze customers.
“We did this deal really quickly, so they won't have some of that [disruption] on day one. But what I'm really excited about is the day two stuff of producing products that nobody else can provide,” he said. “The Drivewyze solution with Drivewyze free safety alerts and the government agency services, combining that with what Bestpass-Fleetworthy has on the safety and compliance side actually allows our customers to proactively manage all of those responsibilities for keeping vehicles on the road – to improve their safety scores, to improve their bypass efficiency – all those things work together once you get the data working, and that's where our focus is.”
Fogarty said the two companies sharing technology will accelerate product innovation, and the combined entity already has some ideas in store with the potential for a new solution in the next quarter or two.
