Extraction of logs in forestry using operations research and geographical information systems

An important and so far much neglected operative problem in Swedish forestry is to extract round wood from actual harvest areas to load points at forest roads. Once at the load point, logging trucks can collect it for further secondary transportation to saw- and pulp-mills. We report on a system being developed which collects geographic information by a global positioning system (GPS) about log piles and actual routing network used by the forwarder. This is stored together with related information in a geographical information system (GIS). Using operations research (OR) techniques we can find high quality routes. This provides the driver with an operative tool in finding routes. We give numerical results from a case study done for a major Swedish forest company.