Improved efficiencies in road freight for forestry companies

Friday 24 Aug 2007

 
Freight by road in New Zealand is big - and growing. Apart from general freight, the movement of logs, manufactured forest products and wood by-products is the largest freight commodity group in New Zealand. Annual volumes carted by road are currently around 31 million tones each year and this is projected to increase by 10-15% over the next five years as new forests come on stream in regions such as Northland, East Coast and Otago/Southland. New Zealand road freight is expected to almost double by 2020 and is expected to be greater than the country's economic growth.

To assist in increasing transport productivity, the forest products industry has been recently involved in a Heavy Transport Review that's being driven by MOT and Transit. A detailed submission was put forward by the NZFOA on behalf of the forestry industry. The submission proposes four vehicle configurations that aim to improve load stability, improvements in productivity and improved fuel efficiency. A suite of concession routes has also been suggested which could result in 84,000 less truck loads, 3.5 million less diesel fuel and $4 million extra road user charges paid.

Details of road transport - in addition to rail and shipping issues facing the forest products industry in both New Zealand and Australia will be covered in the upcoming Value Chain Optimisation 2007 conferences that run in Melbourne on 13-14 September and again in Rotorua for the NZ industry on 18-19 September. Full programme details can be downloaded from www.innovatek.co.nz.


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