Improving the efficiency of the road transportation process in agricultural production

Abstract

The article is devoted to the solution of a topical issue- improving the efficiency of road transportation process on the basis of improving the methods of vehicles selecting for the transportation of certain agricultural cargo under the given operating conditions. It has been proved that significant number of parameters influenced on the efficiency of road transportation in agricultural production. In addition to the generally accepted factors (maintenance costs and fuels and lubricants), transportation conditions, type of cargo, type of unloading and loading operations have a significant impact in agricultural production conditions. It is proved that variety of agricultural cargo within one farm encourages enterprises to form a universal automobile park. As a result of the analysis of purchases of vehicles by agricultural enterprises, it has been determined that there are no stable approaches of enterprises to forming the automobile park, which confirms the thesis of the influence as big number of factors on the choice of vehicles for transportation in agricultural production conditions. The approaches to the definition of the reserves for increasing the efficiency of the available automobile park and to the formation of the optimal structure for certain operational conditions have been considered. The objective need for proper grounding of the choice of vehicle for the conditions of agricultural production, due to the need to take into account a large number of parameters that characterize both the vehicle and the cargo and transportation conditions. In this context, the authors have proposed for practical use an algorithm for selecting a vehicle to perform specific transport work on the transportation of agricultural products, which takes into account the set of vehicles characteristics, cargo type and transport conditions. Attention has been drawn on the need for a systematic approach to the selection of transport vehicles estimation criteria in agricultural production. Taking into account the size of the bulk density, the availability of loading and unloading facilities, the peculiarities of transportation conditions, the amount of average expenses per unit of transport allows to comprehensively assess a single vehicle, optimize the choice of vehicle transportation of concrete agricultural cargo, minimize financial losses, thus, to increase the efficiency of the transportation process in agricultural production. Consideration of the optimal list of vehicle parameters provided by the presented algorithm will increase the efficiency of the transport process in agricultural production, both by reducing operating costs and by saving cargo and time. The clear structure of the proposed algorithm, with justification of each of its steps and, the purpose of each step, certainty and discreteness makes it easy to solve with available software.