Forest road planning considering road and skidding costs (Case study: Kheyrud Forest)

Hyrcanian forests are the only forests designated for commercial timber production inIran. Ground-based skidding is the most common timber harvesting system used in these forests, but due to low road density (1-2m/ha), large parts of the forests are still inaccessible. To facilitate timber harvesting in the forest, it has been proposed to increase the road density up to 20 m/ha. The aim of this study was to incorporate the estimated skidding costs through a time study into existing transportation planning tool, NETWORK 2000 software package to help decision making on forest road building. This method was applied to Gorazbon district in Hyrcanian forests, where 244 links were built for analysis. The study used continuous time studies based on empirical data for this logging method. The resulted regression model is a function of skidding distance. The best solution found by NETWORK 2000 indicated that all proposed roads should be built to minimize the total skidding and road building costs