Using Network 2000 Program for Transportation Planning of Forest Products

The construction and maintenance of forest roads are the activities that require the highest financial investment in the extraction of forest products. In addition, the cost of transporting forest products from landing to storage area can be significant proportion of the total extraction cost. For this reason, forest engineers are obliged not only to reduce the cost of road construction and maintenance, but also to prepare the most appropriate transportation plan to minimize total costs. Computer aided models can be used to solve complex transportation problems that require the evaluation of many alternative routes and selection of the alternative with least cost. In this study, the Network 2000 program based on the shortest path algorithm was used in transportation planning of forest product, and then the solution capacity of the method was examined in a sample application. As a study area, two Forest Enterprise Chiefs (FECs) of Pasalar and Sarnic were selected from Mustafakemalpasa Forest Enterprise Directorate (FED) in the border of Bursa Forest Regional Directorate. The transportation cost of the road sections, forest product types, location of landing and forest depots were entered into the Network 2000 program after being digitized with ArcGIS 10.2 software. In the solution process, firstly, the route that minimized the transportation cost was investigated, and then, the route with the maximum net profit was determined by taking the sale prices of forest products into consideration. According to results, the transportation cost mostly depends on the transportation time, hourly truck cost and load capacity of the truck.