Following the news that Goodyear has retained the UK police fleet tyre contract, Tyres & Accessories contacted Crown Commercial Services in order to confirm which other tyre firms have succeeded in winning their part of the two government tyre supply contracts which together are worth an estimated £200 million.
Goodyear is continuing its 25-year partnership with the UK Police Force by retaining the relevant tyre supply part of the Crown Commercial Service framework. This means Goodyear will “supply, service and maintain the government-operated fleet for an additional four years.” The Police tyre supply contract makes up a significant part of the overall Crown Commercial Services tyre supply framework which normally runs for four years at a time, but the last deal ran for five due to the pandemic and expired on 10 October 2021.
While Tyres-as-a-Service (Taas) is now coming of age in the passenger car tyre retail side of the business, TaaS arguably finds its roots in the fleet tyre trade. The wide-spread adoption of pence-per-kilometre contracts (otherwise known as PPK or CPK – cost per kilometre) means that both TaaS and PPK put the pre-sale of premium products front and centre. However, fleet contracts bring with them the massive advantage of scale, something that is all-the-more important for business planning in the kinds of challenging post-Covid economic circumstances the tyre business is currently encountering. That’s why June’s 75th-anniversary edition of Tyres & Accessories takes a closer look at the fleet tyre business in general, emphasising the trends and opportunities demonstrated by the tyre-buying habits of the biggest fleets out there.
During the course of 2020 the emergency services’ irreplaceable role as keyworkers took a deserved centre stage. At the same time, tyre technicians up and down the country stayed busy making sure blue light fleets kept rolling. With the Crown Commercial Services framework coming up for renewal in 2021, Tyres & Accessories conducted an in-depth analysis of the Police, Fire Brigade and Ambulance fleets’ tyre purchasing and consumption serialised across the year. But how do the Police and Ambulance fleets compare? In this, the concluding part of our series of blue light fleet analyses, we zoom out and compare the national trends present in each emergency service with the other.
Throughout 2020 Tyres & Accessories has been analysing the tyre choices of UK emergency services fleets. The series began with an investigation into the National Police fleet’s tyre demands, followed by closer looks at the Kent, Metropolitan and West Midland force fleets. At the start of November, we took a look at some key Fire Brigade fleets. Now it is the turn of the Ambulance service.
It is often said that this is the busiest week of the year for the nation’s firefighters. While 5 November 2020 looks likely to be an outlier in this regard thanks to the new national restrictions to counter rising Covid-19 infections, there’s no more appropriate time of year to follow up our previous looks at the tyre demands of police forces with a similar analysis of the fire service. T&A made Freedom of Information requests to the largest, by number of full-time firefighters, UK fire services earlier in 2020, asking for such data as: tyres bought and replaced, the fleet size and vehicle parc, minimum tread depth at change, and whether tyres were regrooved and/or retreaded. The latter is probably the easiest question to answer, as eight fire services told T&A that they do not retread their tyres versus zero who do.
During the last few months Tyres & Accessories has analysed the tyre choices of the UK’s largest Police fleets. Having begun with an introductory investigation into Police tyre supply as part of the June 2020 magazine, our July edition took a closer look at which tyres the Metropolitan Police fleet chooses. Throughout the series we have found a number of consistent trends. Firstly, despite the tyre supply business being contracted to Goodyear and Michelin (via ATS Euromaster), the Police fleets are actually surprisingly open to competing tyre brands. And secondly, tyre consumption habits vary significantly between Police forces.
As part of the Fleet feature within the June edition of Tyres & Accessories, we investigated the various tyre demands of leading Police fleets. Amongst other things, we found that Kent Police are the most tyre-hungry and that – despite being contracted to basically two manufacturers under the Crown Commercial Service agreement – such fleets are actually surprisingly open to competing tyre manufacturers. With this in mind, and continuing our series analysing Police fleet tyre preferences, this month we take a closer look at Metropolitan Police fleet tyre demand.
Continuing our series investigating UK Police fleet tyre demand, we looked a little closer at the differences between the various regional forces tyre preferences. Despite the fact that, as we have seen, tyre purchasing is based on a national framework agreement, there was a surprising amount of variety in both tyre policy and what actually happened when the rubber hit the road, so to speak.
During recent weeks and months, the coronavirus lockdown has seen miles-driven figures fall through the floor. However, some fleets don’t stop moving. And, as anyone who has clapped for our carers will tell you, the blue-light services have been as busy as ever. Of course, the medics, police and firefighters rely on tyre technicians to keep them mobile. So, with this in mind, and as part our June magazine’s Fleet Tyre feature, we have been investigating what the blue light fleet’s tyre demand really looks like.
Each of the UK’s public sector ambulance services fits Michelin tyres on a first-choice policy. The 10 services in England have signed a first-choice policy, alongside those of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, each agreed under the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Supply and Fit Tyres framework. Michelin states that its products provide “long lasting performance and maximum safety,” while “helping to deliver better value for the taxpayer.”
The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust has fit Michelin’s CrossClimate+ to its 160-strong rapid response paramedic fleet of Škoda Octavias and Volkswagen Passats. The tyre is designed to match high performance summer competitors, but with winter capabilities, enhancing safety, longevity and durability.
Goodyear Dunlop Tyres UK Ltd is continuing its partnership with the UK Police Force that sees the tyre manufacturer supply, service and maintain the government-operated fleet. The news means the firm has been supplying tyres to the police for 15 consecutive years. The latest deal adds a further four years to the total.
The Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust’s (YAS) has reported that it has reduced its tyre spend by approximately 20 per cent eight months after ATS Euromaster was appointed to service the Trust’s fleet.
Ahisgett; Flickr; CC-BY-2.0
Goodyear
Royal Mail
Makizox; CC BY-SA 4.0
Fallschirmjäger
West MidlanSer Amantio di Nicolao; flickr
Photo: Dom J; Pexels
Statista; Tyre Industry Publications Ltd
Goodyear; HiQ [@HiQAutocare] via Twitter)