Working paper
The impact of tare weight on transportation efficiency in Australian forest operations. CRC for Forestry, Harvesting and Operations Bulletin 3, December 2008
CRC for Forestry
2008
Abstract
Transportation is an important cost of operations, representing about 15% of the total wood value. One of the greatest opportunities to reduce transport cost is through increased payload, where every kilogram increase in payload represents between $5 and $10 savings per year. Improving payload reduces cost, and can also decrease the fuel use and carbon emissions from a fixed freight task by 3% to 5% for every tonne increase in payload. Under the load-restricted conditions of transport on public road networks, once the largest configuration is in use with good load management, the only way to legally increase payload is to decrease the tare weight of the vehicle by using the lightest design available. In some instances tare weight can be reduced by changing the specifications of the vehicle, i.e. by using lightweight bullbars, completely removing bullbars, or using lightweight material (aluminum over steel) for trailer construction. For this analysis, five companies provided one year of weigh-bridge data including vehicle identification, tare weight, gross weight and time of each load. This report is limited to examining the tare weights and focuses on the opportunity to reduce costs, fuel use and carbon emissions by improving the fleet to the lightest current vehicle design available.
Details
- Title
- The impact of tare weight on transportation efficiency in Australian forest operations. CRC for Forestry, Harvesting and Operations Bulletin 3, December 2008
- Authors
- Mark W Brown (Author) - University of Melbourne
- Publication details
- 4 pages
- Publisher
- CRC for Forestry
- Date published
- 2008
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2008 CRC for Forestry. Reproduced here with permission.
- Organisation Unit
- Tropical Forests and People Research Centre; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; Forest Industries Research Centre; Forest Research Institute
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450382202621
- Output Type
- Working paper
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