Nokian Tyres (Nokian) has developed a digital service to assess the condition of a car’s tyres, integral to a car’s safety. Nokian’s scanner service, now in operation in Scandinavia, reached its one-millionth scan in May 2019, but results show that about 10% of Finnish drivers make do with dangerous tyres.
The tyre company’s SnapSkan service consists of a drive-over scanner and a digital system that provides a registered user a free-of-charge data report on the “health” of their tyres. Drivers can register for the service by adding their car’s registration number on the SnapSkan website. The SnapSkan scanner measures the tyres’ tread depth during a drive-over and the report is sent to the recognised user’s mobile device.
From its pilot introduction in Helsinki, Finland, SnapSkan has grown to cover all of Finland’s biggest cities. SnapSkan reveals that Finnish drivers use summer tyres that are dangerous on the roads because of their low tread depth. The harsh Scandinavian winters require good tyres to ensure safety on icy roads, so the percentage drops for winter tyres.
Nokian’s Head of Consumer Business Operations, Ville Nikkola, explains: “Modern cars are equipped with a lot of safety technology, which is great. However, no safety equipment will help keep the vehicle on the road as efficiently as tyres that are in good condition.”