Coach and bus companies work tirelessly to provide a seamless operation, delivering a trustworthy public transport service to customers and ensuring the profile of coach and bus journeys is escalated to become the preferred and more sustainable travel option for the future.
The challenges in achieving this are significant, but DTM’s Darren Grant explains that tyre management specialists DTM have never been better placed to support fleet operators in meeting these goals.
With a career background in coach and bus fleet operations as well as at tyre manufacturers, I know the logistical challenges faced by operators in ensuring passenger safety, achieving schedules and now, formulating their strategies for meeting decarbonisation goals. So to me, DTM’s work to increase fleet efficiency and provide a fully visible and auditable tyre management process, using less tyres and supporting decarbonisation goals, is extremely exciting.
Our starting point is that we’re independent of any specific tyre manufacturer. This means we can evaluate a fleet’s needs, and provide the best tyre for the job and for the vehicle specification. Often the decision on which tyres to use is based on us carrying out trials with customer fleets, which can provide compelling insight.
The DTM team are exceptional in terms of their knowledge of tyres and fleet operations, and this expertise is perhaps most evident with our team of Fleet Tyre Auditors. They visit customer locations and carry out a detailed inspection of the tyres on each vehicle. These audits check for: damage that can be proactively repaired; evidence of driver practices that are causing visible damage to tyres and wheels, which can be corrected with DTM’s Tool Box Talks training; and for flaws in the tyres themselves.
Running coaches and buses with under or over inflated tyres means that tyres will wear out quickly, and will use an excessive amount of fuel because of rolling resistance, and fleet tyre audits can identify these issues. The introduction of electric vehicles brings new challenges, with increased braking and the additional weight of the battery. Specialist bus and coach EV tyres are being introduced to the market. Developed for heavy load our UK and European Partner Network.
This, aligned with live updates from our 24/7/365 Customer Service team at our Blackpool HQ, provides full visibility for fleet customers as well as a fully auditable trail of tyre related actions. This is obviously great for when we’re supporting customers with scheduled maintenance, or when providing a rapid response, to avoid downtime, when unavoidable roadside issues occur.
Valuable to us and to our customers is the immense insight we can glean from analysing portal data in relation to fleet tyre usage and wear and tear. This knowledge can inform fleet strategies and drive preventative maintenance.
For bus and coach fleets, we can offer an insight driven, proactive approach to tyre management.
Our fleet customers are telling us that the combination of DTM’s expertise and tools have been crucial in improving their fleet performance and making cost efficiencies.
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