Tire Pressure
MANAGING THE DATA Of course, being able to get more real-time data about your tires can be overwhelming if you can’t identify “actionable” information you can use in the shop. Peggy Fisher, president of TireStamp Inc., says her company and others are well aware of the need to streamline information coming into fleets. She says tire pressure monitoring and management systems will integrate further with telematics systems in the future, eventually allowing fleets to have improved visibility and control over developing tire situations. With that in mind, she recommends fleets take into account what kind of data they will be able to access.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF CONTINENTAL TIRE
system will not only address under-inflated tires but also over-inflated tires. “It can automatically provide air to a tire found to be below the preset target pressure, and it can respond to changes in ambient temperature by relieving air from a trailer tire found to be above a preset upper threshold,” she says. “Tiremaax Pro can also equalize tire pressures across all wheel positions. All of this is done automatically, with no driver intervention required.” Even more capabilities are coming. For instance, Dana Ltd. intends to introduce an active-inflation component to a TPMS next year. “Similar systems have been in place on trailers for several years now,” says Steve Slesinski, Dana’s director of product planning for the commercial vehicle market. “But with a trailer axle, you’re basically routing the system though a big, hollow, tube. Power unit axles and their gearing are much more complex to design around. But we’ll have a viable solution for tractors and feel that the industry will respond and accept this technology as it did with trailer systems.” Slesinski says Dana’s research shows that fleets typically experience one unplanned “tire event” a year per truck at a cost of around $700 for service and repairs. “And that’s without factoring in an additional $500 to $1,000 in downtime costs.” Trey Thompson, digital solutions field engineering leader for Continental Tire the Americas LLC, says many tire pressure management systems today are stand-alone systems with no ability to aggregate data, see data history, or view the data remotely. But, he adds, connectivity will be more and more common in the future.
Continental’s new ContiPressureCheck system uses remote sensor readings to collect data and transmit it to any fleet location on the planet for evaluation.
“The information you’re getting should be useful and not overwhelming. On the other hand, these systems can provide crucial data fleets need to make informed maintenance decisions. And if all you’re getting are alerts, you’re missing out on a great deal of data.” To help, Fisher says TireStamp has an app that allows technicians and managers to check on a vehicle on demand. Managers can use this app to: • see where the vehicle is, • see what service it needs, and • prioritize the service that is conducted at that location. “We also provide the fleet with several useful reports that do not overwhelm with too much data,” she adds. Likewise, Hargrave says PressurePro has integrated its system with PeopleNet, Omnitracs, Geotab and other telematics providers, as well as RS232 and CANbus (J1939) abilities. “In doing so,” she says, “we’re able to easily integrate our technology and read via tethering or vehicle networks to provide complete and easy-to-use integration options along with our advanced analyzation tools, including our newly released Automated Data Logger software, so users can analyze tire performance data and recognize tire performance trends and patterns.” Continental can integrate its ContiPressureCheck TPMS with PeopleNet or Zonar so users of those telematic platforms can view tire data inside their telematics portal. But it has gone beyond that with its
new ContiConnect remote tire monitoring platform, which allows tire data to be accessed remotely by back office personnel every time trucks return to the fleet yard. “The yard reader station collects the data and passes it to a web portal, where the data can be viewed from anywhere in the world,” Thompson says. The web portal features audible and visual alerts if a tire experiences low pressure or high temperature; it also can trigger text message and email notifications of the alert. “This notification capability means that a fleet manager, maintenance personnel, or tire service provider can be alerted to the problem even if they are not constantly monitoring the web portal,” he says. “While significantly more data is becoming available across the trucking industry, customers are becoming less interested in having it reported to them,” says Judith Monte, vice president of marketing for Aperia Technologies Inc., which makes the Halo automatic tire inflation system. “The future of tire management is not about reporting data to customers, but transforming data into insights and automatically taking action on them.” Monte says the most advanced TPMS solutions today provide insights to fleet managers to be able to take action, but the future is enabling fleets to streamline operations by automatically taking that action on the data on their behalf. ■ Jack Roberts is senior editor of MTD’s sister publication, Heavy Duty Trucking.
MTD June 2018
