Bridgestone has bought iTrack, which provides tyre management solutions for the off-the-road (OTR) market, from UK-based Transense Technologies Plc. All employees of the iTrack Solutions business will join Bridgestone as part of the acquisition. No financial details have been released.
Durham City Transit Company (DCTC) and Tyrata, Inc., have completed a test and evaluation protocol trialling Tyrata’s Drive-Over System (DOS) and data analytics. The solid-state DOS automatically collects and analyzes tyre tread depth as buses drive over the low-profile, speedbump-like sensor.
Goodyear has entered three-year tyre partnership with Maxi Haulage Ltd. As part of this deal, Maxi Haulage will be supplied with premium tyres from the KMAX GEN-2 range, and be supported by TruckForce, under the Goodyear Total Mobility offering.
Michelin is teaming up with AS 24, the HGV service station network that fuel company Total runs in 28 countries across Europe, to launch a new automatic tyre inspection service – Fleet Diag 24. The partners will launch their diagnostic offer in March. The rollout begins in a small way, with Fleet Diag 24 initially offered at just three sites in France, however, we can expect to see it introduced at many more of the 986 AS 24 outlets in the UK and Europe.
FineLine Technologies Inc. has acquired Consolidated Printing Inc., a leading provider of printed tickets for professional and collegiate sporting events and major entertainment and event venues throughout the United States. The acquisition marks FineLine’s strategic entry into event management, an industry in which the company can leverage its advanced data management and RFID capabilities to improve complex ticketing processes.
When ETRMA called for open access to vehicle data for tyre manufacturers, the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturer’s Association had current and nascent Tyres as a Service (TaaS) technology in mind.
The Tyre Recovery Association (TRA) has announced the completion of a digital tyre tracking trial. Conducted with TRA member Fraser Evans & Sons Ltd and technology partner PragmatIC. The trial used Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. The tags were fixed to the tyre by the collector, who assigned them to their future use, for example retreading or reprocessing. These tags are designed remain attached to the tyre right through to its end-of-life and the data they contain is accessed using a handheld scanner, which reads the unique RFID.
Transense Technologies Plc, which provides sensors systems to the industrial, mining and transportation markets, is pleased to announce that “a customer” has placed an order for 50 iTrack II units for installation in mines in North America.
Bridgestone’s successful acquisition of TomTom Telematics follows earlier reports that both Michelin and Bridgestone were vying to buy the Telematics business unit from Netherlands-based company TomTom. In addition, according to Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, Michelin was one of four in the running. For its part, Michelin was allegedly aiming to add the business into its Michelin Solutions portfolio. Clearly, in order to maintain its original plans and to compete with Bridgestone, Michelin will now have to find an alternative way of moving forward.
Phillip K Dick may well have been thinking far further into the future than the current popularisation of electric cars when he wrote his famous novella “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, however the rise of big data alongside electric and autonomous vehicles means the most advanced cars of today have an increasing amount in common with the artificial intelligence in the source material for the film Blade Runner.
The industrialisation of big data has been progressing quickly in recent years within the automotive segment. TPMS sensor technology and the networks they feed data into have enabled increasingly sophisticated software systems to be created to use the massive amount of data we are now able to collect more effectively. Such systems are also able to increase the business applications of another technology, radio-frequency identification, or RFID, helping commercial tyre distribution chains to increase cost, time, and safety efficiency as well as accuracy in their collection of data. Steve Daly, commercial director of CAM, the provider of e-jobsheet, TiDaeX, and the Online Tyre Catalogue, told Tyres & Accessories about the opportunities RFID is now unlocking, and how future, more affordable reading technology could increase the reach of these gains.
This section is entitled “TPMS and sensor technology” for a reason. No longer are in-tyre sensors about measuring temperature alone. Now TPMS basically means pressure and temperature, often with the addition of algorithmically generated road feedback, load information and even wear calculations. These “big data” contributions are routinely relayed to the cloud for analysis. At the same time external tread readers are measuring similarly important data and sending that to the cloud. Put all this together and we have what Pirelli calls this the “sensorisation” of the tyre business. Whatever we call it, this part of the business now about far more than just sensing tyre pressures. As far as uptake is concerned, legislation and technical innovation are the key driving forces.
The Suretrac brand, which is manufactured in China by Beijing-based Staridge Inc, reports that it is now embedding radio frequency identification (RFID) chips inside commercial truck tyres and retreads, enabling fleets to better manage their tyre assets throughout the full life cycle.
Bridgestone
Tyrata
Maxi Haulage
