The Center for Forest Business recently evaluated a truck weight policy implemented by Rayonier at their Georgia mills in 2002. To discourage grossly overloaded log trucks at their facilities, Rayonier began imposing financial penalties on trucks where the gross vehicle weight (GVW) exceeded the state maximum of 80,000 lb. by more than 10%. We compared the average and variability of truck gross vehicle weights, payloads (wood), and empty truck weights of all loads received the month the policy was implemented to the same month in the previous year. Within one week of the new policy taking effect, the percentage of trucks that exceeded the allowable GVW dropped significantly, from 5.56% of all loads to just 3.01% of all loads. At the same time, the average GVW increased from 38.9 to 39.3 tons and average payload increased from 24.6 to 24.8 tons. In addition, the GVW was more consistent after the policy took effect, with variability dropping from 9.35% to 7.48%. This was achieved by significant reductions in the number of seriously underloaded trucks. Most log trucks are loaded in the woods without scales available to weight the truck and load, thus loggers estimate the loaded weight. This policy encouraged loggers to pay more attention to their load weights and as a result the loggers saw higher truck payloads while the mill received fewer grossly overloaded trucks. Larger payloads reduce per ton log hauling costs, require fewer trips to deliver the same amount of wood, and can help contribute to shorter mill truck turnaround times.

Read the the technical release from February 2004 (pdf)