Abstract
Timber haulage is the last phase of the raw timber production process, necessary to transport timber to the customer. To improve the efficiency of logging truck operations, it is necessary to observe and assess several operational parameters through the electronic systems installed on the logging trucks. Measurements for this study were conducted for three logging truck types, which hauled 24,648 m3 of timber over 54,857 km and 1232 round trips. The RMC system was used for truck monitoring, equipped with a CAP04 capacitance sensor and a WGS 48 GPS module. The monitoring was continuous, lasting 27 to 74 weeks. Data acquired were evaluated via regression and correlation analyses and ANOVA. The results showed a moderately strong negative correlation between haulage productivity and haulage distance, ranging from r = −0.47 to r = −0.68. Simultaneously, a rather low efficiency of timber haulage was found for long-range haulage caused by legislation-based small utilization of the load-carrying capacity of the logging trucks. This showed in increased fuel consumption per production unit (2.01 Lm−3) as well as increased carbon emissions production (5.54 kg m−3).
Highlights
Timber haulage is an important link in the raw timber supply chain, with substantial amounts of energy consumption and costs connected to it
Based on the temporal analyses of particular operations, fuel consumption, and productivity, we aim to identify the main factors affecting these parameters in the various operational modes, enabling the improvement of timber haulage efficiency, productivity, and reduction of its CO2 emissions
Further research is needed to confirm the relationships found in this study based on a larger number and variety of trucks and with a more detailed view on the factors affecting operational parameters throughout driving operations
Summary
Timber haulage is an important link in the raw timber supply chain, with substantial amounts of energy consumption and costs connected to it. Either equipped with or without hydraulic manipulators, are the most abundant machines used in timber haulage [1]. In Finland, 75% of timber is transported to mills by trucks [2]. The rest, 25%, is transported to mills either by train (22%) or waterways (3%), though these, too, include roundwood trucking at the beginning of transportation chain (50 km on average). A large majority of Sweden’s cargo is transported on the road and a special case of that is timber transports. The total fleet of timber trucks consists of over 1600 registered trucks that transported 60 million tonnes of roundwood last year [3].
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