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Specially Equipped Timber Transportation Technology Saves Road Condition and Reduces Logging Costs

Forestry work is organized under different weather conditions. In order to ensure the availability of wood resources for the processing industry and planned deliveries of timber within the set deadlines and volumes also in long lasting rainy and wet weather, while preserving both forest and state roads, JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) use timber trucks for specific timber transportation services equipped with a tire pressure monitoring system.

“As technology evolves in the field of transport, LVM for the first time launched a tender for service providers with an “added value” – truck tire pressure control system. Thanks to this system, the driver of a truck can easily and conveniently adjust the pressure in the tires of the truck, providing the most suitable tire pressure for the particular driving conditions.

The work invested and the purchase of such a separate service turned out to be particularly relevant in the wet autumn and “nonexistent” winter of this year. For more than three months, the contracts on the use of such equipped timber trucks in timber transportation have been validated and confirmed the advantages of such technology under certain conditions,” says Mārtiņš Krūze, LVM Logistics Manager.

Such a vehicle not only improves the availability of timber in bad weather without worsening road conditions, but also reduces the day-to-day costs of infrastructure maintenance: if timber is transported on low load-bearing roads by a timber truck equipped with a tire pressure monitoring system, in certain circumstances and locations there is no need for separate road maintenance work, which would be required using conventional timber trucks.

Timber contracts are currently underway involving eight freight forwarders equipped with a tire pressure monitoring system.

Freight forwarders serving LVM are equipped with technologies that enable you to optimize and receive work orders electronically, including the preparation of a specific route best suited to the specific situation, eliminating the risk of freight being transported by a road not suitable for driving at that time, for example, due to prolonged rainfall.

Thanks to state-of-the-art technology, LVM has developed IS solutions that improve the planning and execution of day-to-day operations, such as LVM GEO geospatial information programme, which provides current road and truck information, including current road usage restrictions due to adverse weather conditions.