Economic Comparison of the Use of Tyres, Wheel Chains and Bogie Tracks for Timber Extraction

Nacrtak Many logging operators in Finland use bogie tracks and wheel chains all the year round and under all terrain conditions. The hypothesis tested here is that bogie tracks and wheel chains increase the resistance forces, and thus fuel consumption, when operating in summer conditions and on a hard-earth forest floor. Fuel consumption was measured under such conditions using the CAN bus and GPS techniques and models were generated to simulate it in different forms of terrain and types of logging work. It was found that both wheel chains and bogie tracks increased fuel consumption under all simulated terrain conditions, the difference being quite marginal for wheel chains, but much more significant for bogie tracks. A site size of 5 hectares was the break-even value reached in three out of four simulated terrain types that made the removal and re-installation of bogie tracks profitable when the average extraction distance was more than 600 metres.