Tyres cost around 3% of a transport fleet’s operating budget. That may be a small amount overall, but every percentage counts when you’re looking for efficiency improvements. And when you factor in the ways that tyres influence overall fleet performance, the costs can turn out to be greater.
Let’s look at two key areas where tyres impact your fleet’s business: 1. Productivity and 2. Fuel consumption. Then, we’ll get into the benefits of integrated tyre solutions for transport fleets.
The business impact of tyres: 2 key areas
Productivity
Tyre failures are a major contributor to vehicle downtime. Low tyre pressure causes 30% of breakdowns, while slow leaks cause a whopping 90% of tyre-related breakdowns. Driving with the right tyre pressure can prevent costly downtime and unplanned tyre replacements. That’s without mentioning the safety of drivers or the impact of missed deliveries and unhappy customers.
Speaking of safety: Tyres are the second biggest contributor to road casualties. At Webfleet, we often consider how productivity and safety go hand in hand. Accidents mean vehicle downtime. Depending how serious an incident, an accident could also mean a driver can’t work due to injury. Customers expect the highest level of service, and preventative tyre care helps fleets provide reliability.
Fuel consumption
Fleet owners and managers increasingly recognise that tyre health plays a huge role in saving fuel (tyre condition matters for electric vehicles too, since achievable range is affected by tyre performance). A 20% drop in tyre inflation pressure translates to a 2.5% increase in fuel consumption. Yet 20% of commercial tyres on the road are significantly underinflated.
Keeping tyres at the right pressure can improve productivity and shave thousands off a fleet’s fuel bill. Which makes tyre pressure a high priority for any fleet owner or manager. At the same time, manual pressure checks are time consuming and prone to human error.
By using a reliable Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS), fleet owners/managers can stay on top of tyre conditions 24/7. Webfleet TPMS, for instance, makes it easy to accurately monitor tyre pressure and temperature digitally, in real time. Since Webfleet TPMS is used with a vehicle tracking device, there’s visibility on location and odometer data too.
The benefits of integrated tyre solutions
Avoiding costly (and potentially dangerous) breakdowns while reducing fuel spends requires proper tyre maintenance. Tyres should regularly be checked, inflated, rotated and so on. Effective tyre care can be tricky to manage—it’s quite labour intensive and complex to organise. For that reason, many larger fleets are outsourcing their tyre management to companies like Bridgestone, which specialises in integrated tyre solutions. Learn more in our Webfleet Mobility Conference presentation:
Integrated tyre solutions go beyond traditional maintenance. They enable fleets to take advantage of emerging opportunities via actionable, data-driven insights. IoT (internet of things) devices like tyre sensors help turn data on tyre pressure, temperature and other vital parameters into meaningful business insights. By integrating innovative technology with Webfleet TPMS, Bridgestone can provide large fleet customers with highly accurate data on tyre wear and misalignment.
Today, all Bridgestone truck and bus tyres are production-delivered with RFID (radio-frequency identification) as a standard. RFID is a predictive technology. It essentially digitises tyre development—a digital “twin” of a tyre is created so developers can predict the tyre’s performance without it being driven. Fleets benefit from higher-performing and longer-lasting tyres, leading to lower total cost of ownership as well as reduced waste.
A top integrated tyre solutions provider can outfit fleets with the highest quality tyres, data insights and connected technologies, plus extensive retail service and a maintenance network—all for a single monthly price. That adds up to cost savings, along with greater control and visibility over fleet operations. The net results: Optimised safety, efficiency and sustainability and the fullest possible value from every kilometre driven.
Fleets clearly have much to gain from innovations in tyre performance.
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