CATA rolls down tire costs

New contract expected to save agency $20,000 per year

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --03/28/14--   Jim Mark, with Central Arkansas Transit Authority, removes a tire, weighing 250 lbs, from one of their buses in the CATA garage in Little Rock Thursday.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --03/28/14-- Jim Mark, with Central Arkansas Transit Authority, removes a tire, weighing 250 lbs, from one of their buses in the CATA garage in Little Rock Thursday.

To improve upon Benjamin Franklin’s wisdom, a penny saved for the Central Arkansas Transit Authority is a penny earned - times 2 million.

The bus agency expects to save 1 cent per mile of operation on tires for its fleet of buses under a new contract to lease tires going into effect Tuesday. Going from 4.5 cents per mile per bus to 3.5 cents under the new contract for Michelin tires will save the agency about $20,000 a year, said Rodney Middleton, the maintenance director for CATA.

That translates to about $9,300 per month to lease Michelin tires compared with the $11,000 the agency was paying monthly under a contract to lease Goodyear tires.

The agency spends far more on labor and fuel, but the six tires on which each of its 59 main passenger buses ride are important pieces to keep the buses on the road sometimes seven days a week and rolling up a total of 2 million miles per year.

“Those pennies add up,” said Middleton, 45, a 19-year veteran of the agency.

Last year, CATA received 230 tires and scrapped 167, he said. To purchase one off the rack would cost $640 per tire, which is why Middleton said the agency has a contract to lease its tires for about $377 each. The clock on the tires doesn’t begin until they actually are rolling on a bus, he said.

Once the tires have reached their useful life, Michelin will take back the tires under the terms of the contract, which is standard in the transit industry.

The contract is the best one for the agency as far as value, safety and environmental concerns, said CATA spokesman Jason Smedley.

CATA has a fleet management system that helps track the tire life and service personnel check the tire pressure daily, but it falls to CATA’s “tire man,” James Mark, 58, of Lonoke to assess the tires, change them or fix them as necessary each night when the buses roll into the CATA complex at 901 Maple St. in North Little Rock. He works from 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

“That’s when the majority of the buses are in for the night and before they go out the next morning,” Middleton said.

Mark has a background in the trucking industry and was familiar with tires for commercial vehicles before he joined CATA about five years ago. But Mark said he was surprised to find the tire wear and tear in the transit industry was much more punishing than the trucking industry.

Tractor-trailer rigs generally travel at highway speeds for long distances across the country, which keeps the tires relatively cool and contributes to lengthening their lives, he said.

Transit tires lead more punishing lives in urban environments, constantly stopping and going, and making sharp turns day and night, all of which generates heat.

“Heat is a huge issue in transit,” Mark said. “That doesn’t help tire wear.”

The steel rims on the tires can reach temperatures of 300 degrees, particularly in the summer, he said.

Federal regulations require new tires to always be installed on the buses’ front axle. The regulations give Mark a little more room to mix and match on the rear axles, which have four tires.

When front tires reach the end of their useful lives, he can reuse them on the rear axles by regrooving them, which federal regulations allow, he said. Regrooving is the practice of carving out new grooves in a tire to create additional tread depth, which is measured in 1/32 inch.

Federal regulations mandate tires be taken out of service if tread depth reaches 2/32 inch. Tread depth is about 27/32 inch when new. But regrooving when tires depth reaches 2/32 inch can provide grooves 7/32 inch deep, Mark said.

Mark said tire wear declines in the winter months to as little as 2/32 inch to 3/32 inch per month, but in the summer, tires can lose up to 4/32 inch of tread depth per month, “especially the front tires.”

In the summer, Mark tries to put new tires all around three or four of the newer buses that run routes seven days a week just to manage the workload.

Handling the tires is physically demanding. Each tire, aired to 100 pounds of pressure, weighs about 250 pounds.

“You don’t want to let one of these babies fall over,” Mark said.

The urban environment also exacts a toll on the tires in other ways: Potholes and foreign objects can contribute to tire wear, and damage to a tire’s wall from a nail or curb can take it out of service.

Mark said he once “wrestled a spark plug” out of a tire, applied a patch and returned it to service.

Middleton said it is rare for a flat to take a bus out of service while it is on a route.

“If I say once a month, I might be exaggerating,” he said.

Arkansas, Pages 7 on 03/31/2014

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