National Highways has invested in a Mobile Tyre Safety Station which it has been lending to operators of major fleets.
The station is installed at any point in a site where vehicles cross and combines sensors with vision technology and software algorithms to read tyre pressure, tread depths and axle weight for vehicles up to 7.5t. Any unsafe reading is immediately flagged to the transport manager for fixing.
One in five breakdowns on the strategic road network is caused by tyre failure resulting in 50,000 tyre-related breakdowns every year with 30% of those involving commercial vehicles. A major cause of these tyre failures is, according to National Highways, under-inflation.
Assistant project manager at National Highways CV Incident Prevention Team, Anthony Thorpe said: “The mobile tyre safety station has tested more than 28,000 vehicles, and 112,000 individual tyres. 12,000 of the vehicles inspected had a tyre inflation issue, with over 4,000 severely under-inflated. 23,000 individual tyres needed attention, and 7,500 required urgent attention.”
The station can inspect up to 1,000 vehicles a day, and readings are taken in less than 10 seconds.
“For depots to install the tyre technology is not an inconsiderable investment but it is extremely effective in identifying tyre safety issues and we encourage major fleets to consider this,” Thorpe said.
