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ABSTRACT
A computer program has been developed to aid forest engineers in the cost estimation of forest road construction activities. This new tool, called ACCEL, uses Visual Basic for Applications within Microsoft Excel to compute the costs of construction components using interactive sheets, automated tasks, and advanced computer routines. The user is guided through road construction components and prompted for cost data, earthwork quantities, survey information, and the conditions of the construction environment to estimate total construction cost. Road design elements and site characteristics ore variables used to optimize earthwork allocation, improving on using the mass diagram method. The program also estimates clearing and grubbing areas, rock surfacing volumes, and culvert lengths. ACCEL was validated by comparing the results to those of RoadEng (by Soflree), ensuring that formulas were input correctly and showing close agreement in results. This program was created in a recognizable format, i.e., Microsoft Excel, and builds on basic quantity and cost estimation techniques. ACCEL is intended to improve the decisionmaking process for experienced forestry practitioners in forest road construction regardless of region, company, or agency affiliation by accepting their inputs and performing the calculations for different route alternative or varying design specifications.
Keywords: earthwork optimization, forest roads, road cost modeling
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Forest roads are an integral part of forest management and represent a significant investment for landowners. The construction and maintenance of forest roads is the most expensive and time-consuming task involved in forest operations (Layton et al. 1992, Akay and Sessions 2005). These roads allow for the extraction and utilization of a variety of forest resources and support other forest management activities. The impacts that these roads have on the natural environment, as well as the management activities, are seen in the forethought placed in their design, construction, and the related costs (Aulerich 1998).
The estimation of cost for the various components in the conof low-volume forest roads is a challenging task, complicated by factors such as variable topography, soils, rock outcrops, machinery used, and special design requirements (Layton et al. 1992). The magnitude of each of these cost components depends on the nature, size, and location of the project, as well as the management organization, among many considerations promoting the use of computer-based...