Identifying the relationship between tyre performance, fuel consumption and maintenance costs in operating urban bus services: A case study in Sydney, Australia using telematics and fitted sensors

Tyres are an expensive input into the cost of a bus business, yet very little is known about what impact an improvement in the performance of tyres, linked in part to improved maintenance practices, might have not only in reducing the costs of tyres but its impact on fuel consumption and overall maintenance costs. This paper uses data collected over a 12 month period from a bus operator in Sydney where we fitted sensors on all tyres of 35 buses monitored on a monthly data capture plan, which together with data obtained from a telematics system installed in each bus and other data describing the operating environment, enabled us to develop a system of equations to identify endogenous and exogenous influences on tread depth loss of each tyre and fuel consumption, and to map this into implications on maintenance costs. The estimated model system is built into a decision support system to investigate ways in which a bus business can improve its cost efficiency through a changed tyre-related maintenance and operating regime. The findings suggest significant opportunities to improve cost efficiency by a careful review of the decisions related to the practices associated with tyres.