ROADPLAN: A Tool for Designing Forest Road Networks

The ROADPLAN model produces a road network plan for a forest area that is being accessed for the first time. It is based on a raster geographic information system (GIS), for each cell of which the harvesting priority (based on available merchantable volume) is known and the cost of road construction can be estimated. Wood transportation cost ($/ m3.km) is assumed to be constant. All potential cutblocks, taking into account specified volume and area constraints, are first identified. For each cutblock, the cost of constructing potential road links to all points on the existing network and the cost of transporting wood over each link and along the network to one of the access points to the area are calculated. At every step the cutblock with the minimum combined construction and transportation cost (in $/rrf) is added to the network. The model was developed and tested on data from a simulated forest, and then further evaluated on a 100000 ha forest block in northern Ontario where it was found to produce realistic networks similar to that planned for the area. Compared with existing models, ROADPLAN permits considerable flexibility in generating the road network