This research looked at how the tare weight of timber transport trucks affected their operational efficiencies.
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Mark Brown of the CRC for Forestry in Australia, has produced a bulletin (Bulletin 3: December 2008) titled “The impact of tare weight on transportation efficiency in Australian forest operations”. Five different companies provided one year’s worth of weighbridge data on four different truck configurations. These configurations included semi-trailers, B-doubles (two semi-trailers, also referred to as an interlink) and pocket and road-trains (tractor with a semi-trailer and a second trailer on a drawbar). The study focussed on opportunities to reduce tare weights in order to reduce costs, fuel use and carbon emissions.
The study showed that there was a wide spread of tare weights for the same transport configurations. By reducing truck tare weights to levels that are currently achievable with accepted and proven timber truck designs, savings of over Aus$ 1.50 to Aus$ 5.00 per tonne were possible, depending on the configurations. Improvements to fuel use and a reduction in carbon emissions were also possible. The study also showed that it is relatively simple to determine the savings potential for a specific fleet and the vehicles within a fleet that should also be focussed on.
Please visit the CRC website for the contact details of the researchers to obtain a detailed and more complete account of the research.
Source: http://www.crcforestry.com.au/research/programme-three/index.html