THE NEEDS OF FINNISH TRADE AND INDUSTRY FOR THE LOW-VOLUME ROAD NETWORK

The needs of trade and industry concerning road network and the level of road network maintenance depend on the characteristics of business and the intensity of transport. The trend in trade has been the diverge of trade structures and the change towards bigger units. In addition to this ways of action in trade have changed in the direction of faster reaction of customer needs. Also in industry the trend has been the change to bigger units. Globalisation of operational environment and integration of markets have led to a situation where large international enterprises plan their production and delivery structures from a totally new starting point. Electronic information interchange and swift development in data systems have led to significant changes in many areas of business. Operational environment of today and especially the one in the future requires establishing of more and more effective networks. According to expert estimates, some 60% of goods volume transported by industry depart from or end up on the low-volume road network. The low-volume network is important to forest industry, farming and also to food industry and delivery of perishable food products. Building construction industry and fuel deliveries also use low-volume road network. In their transport operations this part of road network is not as critical as in the case of forest or food industry. Transport operations of goods are often highly scheduled and because of minimising warehousing raw materials are often transported directly to production plants. This means that it is of greatest importance that the whole road network, including the low-volume network, is in the structural condition to carry articulated vehicles up to 60 tonnes. Planning of road network maintenance rising from the needs of the forest industry is more complicated than in the case of collecting milk from farms. This is because the collecting areas of raw wood change frequently while milk collecting from farms generally use same routes. The trends in retail trade include also direct deliveries from central warehouses to retail outlets. At the same time timetables for deliveries have moved to the early hours of the day and the time limits for delivery have become more strict. Even though the major part of retail trade delivery operations take place on the main road network the characteristics of the low-volume road network may form a critical factor affecting the timetable planning. The biggest problem concerning low-volume road network is the lack of road maintenance during winter and especially during the night time which combined with the difficult profiles of roads may lead to long detours and timetable problems. Within the areas of low-volume roads exist import industrial plants which cause heavy transport volumes of raw materials and end products. In these cases, the development of precisely targeted actions of road maintenance could be a solution to the problems on the low-volume road network.