Timber Transport Conference

The Timber Transport Conference held on Thursday 11^th March 2010 at Perth Racecourse attracted 100 people with an interest in roundwood haulage.  The conference focused on reducing costs and carbon emissions in timber transport.  The presentations can be accessed by clicking on the links below. Details of the programme and brief biographies of the presenters can be found here.

The opening session featured three perspectives on timber transport
Alistair Speedie the chairman of the Timber Transport Forum and Director Sustainable Development at Dumfries and Galloway Council spoke on behalf of the Local Authorities.

Phil Flanders of the Road Haulage Association gave the hauliers' perspective on meeting the challenge of carbon emission targets.

Stuart Goodall of ConFor focused on the benefits of the forest industries to a low carbon economy.

Neil Stoddart of Scottish Woodlands and John Scott of JST Services introduced the floating pier technology being used to load logs on to boat transport on the west coast of Scotland.

Tom Curry of Direct Rail Services Ltd reviewed the role of rail transport of roundwood and introduced an idea for an intermodal log container.

Neil Wylie from New Zealand gave an enthusiastic talk on the benefits of Central Tyre Inflation (Tyre Pressure Control Systems) including the BigFoot system his company provides.

David Leslie described the continuing work of James Jones & Sons Ltd in developing their timber haulage fleet.  A James Jones timber lorry turned up over lunch featuring maxi tyres and a Tireboss tyre pressure control system.

In the afternoon Dan Cathcart of AECOM introduced the Freight Best Practice programme which features, amongst others, case studies on tyre pressure control systems and floating piers.

Henry Collin of Transport Scotland gave a revealing presentation on the ongoing efforts to collect information on the amount of carbon produced in road maintenance.

Ron Munro introduced the next phase of the RoadexIV project highlighting the studies being undertaken into human-vehicle vibration in road haulage.

Andreas Ottitsch from Cumbria University presented a tool for calculating the carbon emissions associated with road haulage of biomass from woodlands in Cumbria.

In the final session, James Firth of the Freight Transport Association described the developments in Sat Nav for commercial vehicles

Alan Christison and Ying SU of UPM Tilhill described the achievements of the Loghistics in Forestry Transport project.