That is the top line finding of end-of-year data released by Bridgestone’s Partner network.
It also reveals that 35,000 jobs were accepted last year, with an average time of 62 minutes taken from time of first call to a Bridgestone Partner member arriving at the roadside.
The 49 minutes’ average time to resolution was two minutes faster than the figure recorded for 2015 – meaning that vehicles were up-and-running in less than two hours from first call.
Bridgestone’s report also shows that more than 40,000 commercial vehicles were worked on by the partner network last year, with 250,000 tyres managed overall, compared with 207,000 in 2015.
“These figures certainly make for positive reading,” comments Bridgestone national operations manager Paul Sheehan.
“We appreciate the need to get fleets back up and operational as soon as is possible… Knowing that we can get them back up and running again so quickly will be viewed as a major positive amongst operators.”
And he adds: “Our proactive tyre husbandry and national audit teams also mean we have reduced the number of breakdowns per vehicle in 2016.
“Over the past 12 months, we have been asking fleets that aren’t operating a Bridgestone tyre policy to challenge our service provision.
“We carry out free of charge audits at these fleets, and in the majority of cases we can find ways to reduce their tyre costs and minimise their downtime.”
Training for Bridgestong Partner network tyre technicians is led by Paul Turner and Phil Thirsk, both of whom are now irtec accredited assessors for the new IRTE irtec Tyre Technician licence.