TireCon Promises Transparency in the Vehicle Parc

Media Multiplex presented its vehicle parc management software TireCon, at Reifen 2002 for the first time. Three years later its goal is to establish the software as a standard European solution for haulage contractors, passenger car, truck, bus and other vehicle fleets for tyre dealers, service chains and leasing companies.

TireCon has now been converted to a web-based application. “This means that the platform can be accessed all around the world if your computer is connected to the Internet and a browser is installed on the system,” explains Alexander Murad from Media Multiplex in an interview with Tyres & Accessories. The user interface of the software has also been improved.

The company, located in Aue (Eastern Germany), claims that there is a “low fee” for the use of the system, thus high investments purchasing the software can be avoided, it says. The exact costs are – among other things – related to the number of vehicles administrated by the software, or the number TireCon modules used. For example, using the fleet management option incurs a higher cost. In each case however, a fixed monthly login fee has to be paid. As soon as the portal is switched online (planned for March) and everybody can access it, a tool will be available on the site to allow customers to calculate the fee. “For a vehicle parc with 50 vehicles and a single user the monthly fee amounts to 65 euros plus VAT,” offers Mr Murad.

Although the system is not yet available online for the public, Mr Murad claims that some well-known companies are already using it. Media Multiplex claims that this alone shows TireCon has been accepted as a controlling, communication and service portal which can be easily integrated into existing software systems. “Discussions with various interest groups revealed that there is a demand for such an independent fleet management solution. By using it, you can easily access all relevant vehicle and tyre data via internet which increases transparency in the vehicle parc,” claims Murad.

The main target in developing this tool was to give users an opportunity to analyse all data taking into account different parameters such as tyre brand, profile, application, vehicle type or axle position of the tyres. Based on this, fleet managers can easily decide which tyre is optimal for a special task or vehicle. And what’s more, the whole life cycle of each individual tyre can be followed up. Therefore tyre costs can be calculated more accurately and cost saving opportunities can be easily identified.

The data – like tread depth or tyre pressure – supplied by electronic measuring instruments is transferred to the system by using radio frequency technology. Thus time consuming manual work can be avoided, time savings of up to 80 per cent, says Mr Murad. The multilingual TireCon– versions are already available in English and German and others will follow on request – also imports existing data from other systems making a migration from other software as easy as possible.