A tire having an overlay for noise improvement

A tire (10) has an outer tread and an inner casing with a belt structure (16, 17), the belt structure includes an overlay ply (18, 30, 60) reinforced by parallel cords oriented circumferentially having a width (W) between lateral outermost edges, the overlay ply (18, 30, 60) having a pattern of cuts (22) within discrete segments (19). Each segment (19) has a repeated pattern of cuts (22) arranged in six rows R1-R6. Each cut (22) is spaced at least 100 mm from a cut in an adjacent row and is laterally offset from an adjacent cut by at least 3 mm, this distance being smaller than the cut width to ensure that each overlay cord is cut. The overlay cord lengths within the respective rows is of any length (L) in the range 200 to 500 mm. The cut pitch within the respective rows is of any percentage (P) of the tire circumference in the range 8 to 30%. The circumferential offset between two adjacent segments (19) is of any percentage (O) of the tire circumference in the range of 0.5 to 2%.