Development of differential pricing in round wood truck transportation

Approximately 60 million cubic meters of round wood are transported every year with trucks in Sweden and stand for 15 % of all truck transportation in the country. The big amount that is transported results in many haulage companies works in different parts of the country with different conditions to get a good flow on their transports. Today the transport pricing is very general and the payment consists of the unit round wood they are transporting and the distance of the transport. The purpose of this study were, from the freighter and the haulage company’s perspective, try to find ways to change the today applied transport pricing to more differentiated and compare them to historic payment of transportation. The differentiated pricing would pick up factors as transported unit, assortment, opening hours and topography. The study was divided in three parts. Part 1 involved interviews and questionnaire study with haulage companies. The purpose was to find the needs and the acceptance for differentiated pricing and to find out which factors that is important to include. Part 2 involved calculating of the differentiated factors and construction of models through development of existing models. Part 3 involved an analysis where the costs for the differentiated were compared with the historical payment for transports. The most important factor for the profitability for a haulage company was the opening hours at the receivers, according to the transporters. The effect of the calculation was higher costs on receivers with limited opening hours and lower cost on they with unlimited. The opening hours affects on waiting time, back-hauls, effective working time and the use of the trucks. Longer opening hours could improve these conditions for the haulage companies. That is why companies that work in regions with lower accessibility to receivers with longer opening hours would get a higher payment then the companies with higher accessibility. Topography affected the average speed and the fuel consumption and had biggest effect on them in the regions with difficult topography. Topography had little effects on the total costs, but affects single haulage companies more. The companies that work in difficult regions should have higher payment then the companies that work in more simple regions. The transporters thought that the transports should be priced after ton. There are some alternatives to pricing in ton, for example scaling at the receiver or at a scaling station, crane scaling or through the maximum load weight. Pricing in ton would lead to less differences between the seasons and assortment and it would be easier to control the over loads. But it would require investments in scales. If it not possible with pricing after ton, it should be priced with differentiated conversion values on the assortment. This includes higher costs on the transports and need to be compared to the investment of scales