KIOSK PUTS TRUCKERS ONLINE AT LOCAL TRUCK STOP

The DRIVER Net terminal is operated by a touch screen.

The Rhodes 101 Travel Center on Nash Road south of Cape Girardeau offers several services for over-the-road truckers and other travelers, but its new device will help truckers keep in touch. It's a DRIVER Net kiosk, and it has brought the truck stop online.

While the truck stop at Exit 91 off Interstate 55 has its own Web page, the new device will offer truckers a variety of online options, including e-mail.

The Web page address: www.angelfire.com\mo\rtrvlcntr

Travel center general manager Donna Sharley is in charge of soliciting local advertising for the kiosk, which has several national sponsors that help pay for the online services.

The travel center has only had the kiosk for a few weeks, and Henry Brown, the center's second shift coordinator, is in charge of getting the terminal up and running.

Brown explains how the kiosk might work. If a trucker had remembered his wife's birthday was coming up, he could use the kiosk to find a flower shop, call the flower shop, order the flowers and pay by credit card -- all in one transaction from the kiosk.

Sharley says the kiosk is the only one at an independent truck stop in this area.

So far there are about 15 DRIVER Net kiosks in the state and six in the Southeast region, most in national chain truck stops.

Greg Sanders, founder and president of DRIVER Net, has placed more than 400 kiosks through the nation, mostly at the national chain truck stops along the interstates and major highways.

Criteria for independent truck stops to get a kiosk include parking for 100 trucks, services for recreation vehicle users and the general public, a restaurant, and shower and laundry services.

Rhodes meets those criteria with 17 acres of well-lighted and secure parking for trucks. The 24-hour station offers a truckers' lounge and game room.

Brown says the customer comes first at Rhodes.

Sharley says there are between 1,500 and 2,000 people using the truck stop daily, and that's not counting those who use the restaurant.

"Truckers spend long and tedious hours on the road, which makes communicating with family and friends difficult," Brown says. The kiosk will help with the communication problem.

The kiosk has moved the travel center into the computer age.

The prototype for the DRIVER Net was developed four years ago at the company's headquarters in Kansas City, with the concept to get a lot of information to over-the-road truck drivers.

DRIVER Net owns its own proprietary software and makes its money by selling advertising through its kiosk.

Before establishing the kiosk, Sanders owned an advertising agency and production company that worked exclusively in the trucking industry. His company produced marketing and training videos and brochures, and designed and placed advertising.

So it's natural DRIVER Net would have an advertising function.

A company flyer describes the DRIVER Net system as "a multimedia interactive computerized kiosk network that houses MPEG (full-motion video), a smart card and mag stripe reader, telephone handset and printer."

DRIVER Net's systems have an Intel-based Pentium computer, CD ROM, stereo speakers, thermal printer and the ability to run film spots. The terminal has a video screen, a selection panel of advertisers and uses, a telephone and a printer, all accessible by people with a DRIVER Net e-mail account and user identification.

The e-mail services that run on the kiosk are communicated via an intranet to a centralized e-mail server. Account holders may select messages to view or print, compose a new message, forward existing messages, or reply right on the built-in on-screen keyboard.

TIMM Communications and its resellers market e-mail for a flat monthly rate, per driver.

Sanders says the rates are usually paid by the trucking company for its drivers.

In a scene from the futuristic movie "Demolition Man," Wesley Snipes used a machine similar to the DRIVER Net terminal.

"That was to be a futuristic film," Sanders says, "but with DRIVER Net that future is now."

DRIVER Net's kiosk allows truckers access to the Internet and a variety of services that normally would require truckers to carry a laptop computer, Sanders says.

Drivers can use the kiosk to search for job openings in the trucking business through the Professional Driver jobs pad, survey a variety of products in the Route 66 & Local Business Directory, seek used trucks and truck parts through the Truckers' Market and get trucking industry information from the APTDA site.

The concept is similar to America Online, Sanders says. DRIVER Net solicits advertising to pay for the service. The rate for advertising is based on the use of the service.

DRIVER Net gets about 250,000 sessions a month, Sanders says, and he's hoping to have that grow to 1 million sessions a month.

A session is described as a person accessing the system. A hit then would be the number of selections a person accesses within the system.

Other things the kiosk provides includes directions and routing for truckers to get new loads and where to take those loads, electronic pay settlements, and a secure network for companies to communicate with its truckers through the Private Fleet Network.

A scanning system is in the works for truckers to scan and send their bills of lading back to their companies. When the scanning system is incorporated into the system, Brown says, that will speed up the companies' billing process.

Long-term, Sanders envisions an electronic mall or electronic commercial center, and as more companies get into the Internet, DRIVER Net's uses will grow.

Sanders says DRIVER Net will probably add several hundred more units next year, depending on profitability. And, he hopes to market DRIVER Net to a broader audience to the recreation vehicle users and the driving public by eventually placing kiosks in campgrounds and at visitor centers across the nation.

The 3 million truck drivers and 9 million people with recreation vehicles are targets of his marketing.

To meet its end, the company has invested $10 million in the DRIVER Net system and hopes to raise another $10 million to $15 million in private money over the next nine months to a year to finance its expansion.

And, within a year, Sanders hopes to take the company's stock public.

Sanders says people can contact

(him about the private offerings at 1 (800) 853-7790, ext. 232.)