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Analyzing time and fuel consumption in road transport of round wood with an onboard fleet manager

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Abstract

Round wood supply in Austria is often affected by different factors such as bottlenecks or oversupply due to changing market, weather and road conditions. An additional factor impacting the complex wood supply chain is the rising transport costs from the landing to the sawmill. Logging trucks are the primary transportation technology used from the forest to the customer’s site. The objectives of this study were to analyze the actual situation and characteristics of typical trucking activities for round wood supply from the region to an Austrian sawmill. The study used time and fuel consumption, proportion of travel on forest roads and average speed on different functional road classes to estimate productivity and costs. Data collection including GPS-tracking was done using fleet management equipment built into the driver’s cabin. The GPS-routes were analyzed in ArcGIS 9.3 based on the national road network and its attributes. The sawmill studied with a yearly demand of 600,000 m3 round wood was located in southern Austria. In total, more than 2,000 round trips operated by seven logging trucks recorded close to 100,000 km. The transport distance from the forest to the sawmill averaged 51 km. The average share on forest roads within a route to the sawmill was 14.2% with an average speed of 13.5 km/h, whereby the forest road is defined as road with minor importance. Transport costs from the forest site to the sawmill with a truck and trailer were € 11/m3 solid timber based on an average load size of 25 m3. An average 0.77 l of diesel fuel per kilometer was consumed during a round trip including all work phases. A trip to an interim storage location consumed 2.05 l/km due to the number of work phases without driving distance.

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Acknowledgments

The research was conducted in co-operation with a local sawmill Hasslacher Drauland, transport and logging entrepreneurs. It was funded by the FFG––Austrian Research Promotion Agency. The authors are also most grateful for Tim Hoy for comments and revising the English language.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, Institute of Forest Engineering, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna, Peter-Jordan-Strasse 82/3, 1190, Vienna, Austria

    Franz Holzleitner, Christian Kanzian & Karl Stampfer

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  1. Franz Holzleitner
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  2. Christian Kanzian
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  3. Karl Stampfer
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Correspondence to Franz Holzleitner.

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Communicated by W. Warkotsch.

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Holzleitner, F., Kanzian, C. & Stampfer, K. Analyzing time and fuel consumption in road transport of round wood with an onboard fleet manager. Eur J Forest Res 130, 293–301 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0431-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0431-y

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