Warrington’s Own Buses has switched its tyre contract to Michelin Services and Solutions ahead of a wholesale transition of its fleet to battery-electric.
Ahead of and during that shift, Michelin will fit both new and Remix urban tyres, predominantly from the X InCity range, to diesel buses in the Cheshire fleet. X InCity tyres have reinforced sidewalls that the supplier says reduce wheel interventions and downtime instances.
As the 105 battery-electric buses – part funded by a successful bid to the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas scheme in England – arrive in Warrington, they will be fitted with the X InCity EV Z tyre. It offers “excellent safety, longevity and load capacity while helping operators to reduce their environmental footprint by reducing rolling resistance,” Michelin adds.
The latter characteristic is key to zero-emission buses, it continues. To suit battery-electric applications, the fitments will also have an increased load carrying capacity, and they will have Michelin technologies that include InfiniCoil, Forcion and Regenion to maximise mileage potential.
Under the terms of the contract between Warrington’s Own Buses and Michelin Services and Solutions, a Michelin Fleet Operator will be based at the operator’s depot to undertake all tyre management including tyre fitting, stripping and regrooving.
Wheel and tyre assemblies will then be provided to the bus company’s technicians for mounting to the vehicle. Michelin will also carry out fleet-wide inspections.
Speaking about the arrangement with Michelin, Warrington’s Own Buses Finance Director David Woods says: “Over the course of the next 15 months, our entire fleet will switch from diesel to battery-electric and we wanted to have the right tyre manufacturer in place to support that.
“We are shortly moving to a new purpose-built EV depot in Warrington. It was important to have the contract secured and all aspects of our tyre management programme up and running well ahead of the phase out of diesel vehicles. It was a very smooth transition once the decision had been made.”
