Pit Group to Evaluate Fuel Efficiency of 5 Tire Brands

Pit Group announced that its Spring Energotest in Blainville, Quebec, Canada, will focus on the fuel economy of tires, evaluating the efficiency of five brands. The test will take place on June 9 at the Transport Canada test track.

During Energotest, tires from BF Goodrich, Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear, and Michelin will undergo a series of fuel economy tests using stringent protocols to measure the performance of each tire.

Pit Group is a research and engineering group focused on improving fleet maintenance and operations in the North American transportation industry.

“Pit Group fleet members met in March to identify testing and R&D priorities for the coming year,” said Yves Provencher, business development manager, intelligent transportation at Pit Group. “Each member lists issues they are facing and our engineers create a list of potential items to test. Members then vote to identify their top 10 priorities. This year, fleet members voted to focus on tire fuel economy.”

The tire tests planned for Energotest will be based on TMC Type II and Type III Fuel Consumption Test Procedures, according to Pit Group. The Type II test will compare each brand using a control tire brand. Type III testing will test each tire on several identical vehicles, by switching tires from one test vehicle to another between tests, to clearly measure the impact on fuel consumption.

Additional testing topics identified by fleet members for evaluation in the future by the PIT Group include:

• Fuel economy of trailer gap closing technologies and reefer fuel consumption
• Impact of advanced driver assist systems
• Reliability of tire inflation systems
• Comparison between drum and disc brakes.

Pit Group fleet members also identified important maintenance issues, including corrosion mitigation and DPF cleaning systems, and the impact of predictive cruise control, a topic on which Pit Group will run an operational study.

Pit Group also announced that Loblaw Inc., a Canadian food and pharmacy network of corporate and independently operated stores, has joined its member roster. Loblaw joined Pit Group to take advantage of Energotest, Pit’s research results, and networking opportunities. Pit Group now has 46 fleet members.