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Monitoring tyre performance from afar

Bridgestone tyre pressure monitoring reaches further afield through its acquisition of Webfleet Solutions

Bridgestone Australia sales director Heath Barclay.

With the aim of enhancing its tyre business model, Bridgestone acquired Tom Tom Telematics early in 2019, rebranding it as Webfleet Solutions, a Bridgestone Company, on October 1 that year. According to Bridgestone sales director Heath Barclay, the acquisition has added an extra dimension to the company’s foundation business through tyre pressure monitoring.

“It enables us to use telematic data to optimise the choice of tyre for a fleet, and it enables us to ensure that we’re looking at the whole role of the driver holistically, so driver performance and driver behaviour plays a big role in tyre usage,” Barclay says.

“We can bring all that together and have a conversation with customers to drive down the total cost of ownership.

“Tyre pressure plays a huge role in fuel efficiency. So if your tyre pressure is under, then your fuel costs will drive up,” Barclay says.

Barclay points out that data is fed back immediately to the office, importantly in terms of avoiding unnecessary calamities.

“Usually a leak will happen slowly and then a failure will happen somewhere and the cost of repairing that tyre 1000km from the nearest city is enormous.

“It enables us to do true preventative maintenance so that when we’re seeing a leak starting to appear we can then go and deal with that before it becomes a catastrophe.”

Christopher Chisman-Duffy, Webfleet Solutions’ sales director.

However, it’s not only truck tyres that are able to be monitored. Christopher Chisman-Duffy, Webfleet Solutions’ sales director, says a new piece of hardware, Link 340, is able to track all powered equipment.

“Link 340 is an asset tracker. When it’s connected to the tractor as it’s driving along, it gives a full update of position, speed, everything else as well, so we’re using just more data to help make businesses more efficient,” Chisman-Duffy says.

“Link 340 is designed for fleet managers and business owners to get the most value and productivity out of each of their assets. This can make a tangible impact on the reduction of unnecessary costs and optimise processes for better business results.”

Both Chisman-Duffy and Barclay were in attendance at this year’s Brisbane Truck Show in May, stating that the collaboration between Bridgestone and Webfleet Solutions will deliver great benefits to the local fleet industry from a safety and sustainability perspective.

“We’re in the infancy of our collaboration, but already we’re seeing the great potential for our customers in terms of utilising Webfleet Solutions for better insights into tyre requirements and scheduled tyre maintenance,” Barclay says.

Photography: Greg Bush

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