Applying a mathematical approach to improve the tire retreading process

• Waste treatment has been gaining in importance; in this paper, we have analysed the ELV treatment with the focus on used tires.
• Decision making regarding retreading of used tires has been gaining in importance.
• In order to solve the problem, there has been developed a model based on Bayesian networks.
• The model has been applied to input values of a realistic sample of tires.
• The results obtained according to this model are used to define the limits up to which retreading is considered to be justified.

Problem of waste treatment is very important for environment and the share of tires in this scope is high. The aim of this paper is to analyse retreading as one very interesting way of tires’ treatment. In practice, firms involved with commercial vehicles exploitation have to decide whether to retread used tires or not, depending on the number of retreadings of used tires and travelled distances after each retreading. An approach based on Bayesian networks is proposed as a tool for decision making support in tire retreading process. Analysis is performed on database of tires’ exploitation from a company of public passenger transportation and the statistical results are used as inputs to the proposed model. The results obtained according to the proposed model provide a good basis when it comes to making a decision whether to retread or not a used tire.