Thursday, May 19, 2011

Volvo Trucks Awarded for One More Pile Project Success

 Swedish manufacturer Volvo Trucks has been working to optimize timber haulage, as part of its involvement in the One More Pile project, and its efforts have recently paid off.  The company has won the Volvo Group’s internal environmental award for its success in reducing emissions from timber haulage trucks.


The award is presented every year to encourage good examples and initiatives in the environmental field. The jury's judgement was based not only on the team's "enthusiastic and successful work in developing a modular system for energy-efficient vehicle-based transport" but also on its successful cooperation across project boundaries.






By lengthening trucks and thus increasing the amount of timber that each vehicle can carry, the "One More Pile" project succeeded in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 percent. And it did so with retained levels of safety and without increasing wear on the road surfaces.

"One quarter of road haulage in Sweden is accounted for by the transport of timber. If we can make these transport operations more efficient and reduce their carbon emissions, we stand to gain a lot," said Lena Larsson, project manager at Volvo.

The One More Pile rig, an extended combination that has been tested within the framework of the project, is 30 metres long and carries 65 tonnes of timber, as against today's conventional timber haulers that carry 42 tonnes and are 24 metres long. The truck, a Volvo FH16 with a 660 hp engine, has been in operation for two years now, during which it has hauled over 100,000 tonnes of timber.

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