United States Department of Transportation
i
Improving log transportation with data based monitoring and analysis in northern Wisconsin and upper peninsula of Michigan.
-
2012-02-01
-
[PDF-7.05 MB]
Details:
-
Creators:
-
Corporate Creators:
-
Corporate Contributors:
-
Subject/TRT Terms:
-
Publication/ Report Number:
-
Resource Type:
-
Geographical Coverage:
-
Corporate Publisher:
-
NTL Classification:NTL-FREIGHT-FREIGHT;NTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION;NTL-PLANNING AND POLICY-PLANNING AND POLICY;
-
Abstract:Minimizing transportation cost is essential in the forest products industry. Logs and wood chips are relatively low value. Logs are a dense heavy weight product to transport, while chips are light and bulky. These handling characteristics along with low value create a supply chain where transportation costs represent a large portion of the final delivered product price. The Midwest forest products industry competes in a global market and the region's value proposition is highly dependent on an affordable and efficient transportation system. Understanding of system efficiencies requires sufficient data, but while most individual forest products companies collect data on truck trip origin and destination, little is known about the actual daily truck activity within the region. One method to collect data on continuous truck movements is with global positioning systems (GPS) data receivers. Since the cell phone coverage in the region is very sparse and unreliable, using satellite based GPS transponders is a logical alternative, but the use of such devices has been limited in the forest products industry, partially due to the high cost of devices and partially due to the fact that the financial benefits of these tracking systems haven's been demonstrated for many owner-operators, not has this data been required for payment for freight invoices. The primary objective of this research effort was to provide transportation time and movement data for actual shipments of logs and chips to gain insights on how to improve system efficiency. Data on actual movements can be used to identify and evaluate the choke points on the system and compare against the anecdotal data by industry stakeholders. While the objective of system improvements is to reduce costs and provide overall economic benefit to the supply chain, the research team was not provided with commercial rate data or cost information to make economic conclusions, but rather concentrated in technical analysis of actual truck movement data.
-
Format:
-
Funding:
-
Collection(s):
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
