Car light trails on a street in Rome

    • Saving lives, fuel and CO2: Why the EU should set stringent standards for tyre pressure monitoring systems

    More than 90% of European motorists drive with one or more tyres underinflated, and 12% drove cars with tyres in danger of failure . This is a problem in many respects. It poses significant safety risks (9% of fatal accidents on motorways are related to tyre failures), it wastes billions of litres of fuel and around 10 MT excess CO2 emissions, and wears out tyres more quickly.

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    Tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) that warn the driver of incorrect tyre pressures can largely put an end to this. Therefore the recently adopted EU’s General Safety Regulation prescribes that ‘accurate’ systems should be fitted to new cars as of 2012. Negotiations are now ongoing amongst regulators on what this exactly means. There is a wide variation in performance of different systems, so prescribing high standards for accuracy and detection time is paramount.

    This briefing describes how the regulatory body UN-ECE in Geneva has arrived at too loose prescriptions, and why and how the EU should therefore act correctively over the coming weeks. The briefing concludes that the EU should:

    • Take back responsibility from UN-ECE for setting TPMS performance criteria;
    • Set a maximum detection time limit of 10 minutes for deflation;
    • Set an accuracy threshold of 0.3 bar;
    • Set a maximum tolerance for measurement inaccuracy of 3 kPa (0.03 bar).

    These criteria would ensure that all the TPMS criteria set by the General Safety Regulation would be met, and that systems fitted would deliver the intended safety, environmental and economic benefits.