PIT Group announced that fuel economy of tires is the focus of its Spring Energotest being held through June 9 at the Transport Canada test track in Blainville, Québec.
“PIT Group fleet members met in March to identify testing and R&D priorities for the coming year,” said Yves Provencher. “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 ten priorities. This year, fleet members voted to focus on tire fuel economy.”
During Energotest, tires from BF Goodrich, Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear and Michelin will undergo a series of fuel economy tests using the most stringent protocols in the industry to measure tire performance.
The tire tests planned for Energotest will be based on TMC Type II and Type III Fuel Consumption Test Procedures. In the Type II test, each brand will be compared to each of the other brands using a control tire brand. For the Type III testing, each tire brand will be tested on several identical vehicles, by switching tires from one test vehicle to another between tests, to clearly identify their impact on the fuel consumption.
The newest fleet to join the growing member roster at PIT Group is Loblaw Inc., a food and pharmacy network of corporate and independently-operated stores across Canada.
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.
