Single vehicle accidents are one of the most common types of accidents that occur on the Swedish road network. Depending on the design of the road, the presence of a crash barrier and embankment on the Roadside, the outcome of a Roadside collision can lead to serious injuries and even deaths.The aim of this project is to investigate the possibility of improving road safety by designing the optimal Roadside area based on the results of a life cycle cost analysis (LCC).The questions that have been answered during the duration of this project are:1) Describe the current technical solutions for Roadside area design and the various barrier types used in Sweden.2) Complete an existing mathematical model that has been developed by Hawzheen Karim, for calculating life-cycle costs for various Roadside areas.3) Calculate and compare the life cycle costs for the side area with a barrier and without a barrier.By performing an analysis of the documentation on the current guidelines and rules for shaping the Roadside, was it possible to describe the current technical solutions for the formation the Roadside as well as the current Roadside barriers in use today. A mathematical model for calculating the life cycle costs of different barrier types had already been developed by Hawzheen Karim. This model was supplemented so that it could calculate life-cycle costs of the Roadside region with and without a barrier. After the model was completed, an analysis was performed to obtain life-cycle costs of a Roadside with and without a barrier.The result showed that there is a clear relationship between the slope inclination, fill height, and the rate at which the costs rise.

ABSTRACT This study is an exam work at the Department of Ecology at the Swedish Agricultural University, Ultuna, Uppsala. The field work was performed in the counties of Uppsala and Västmanland. Grassland areas, exposed to annual mowing, are known to host a variety of rare and red-listed vascular species. The area of these grassland are, however, decreasing in the landscape due to modern farming. The fact that Roadside verges maintain regular mowing has proven to be a successful concept for many rare vascular plant species in this habitat. Vascular plants along Roadside verges at the State road network were inventoried due to a government mandate during 1995 and 1996. As a result ?Species rich Roadsides? were pointed out.

The moose is a keystone species in the boreal forest ecosystem, but the dense Swedish population do cause some serious problems. From a forestry perspective, their browsing on young Scot pine (Pinus sylvestris) causes extensive losses of revenue. Adjusting the cleaning along Roadsides of low trafficked forest roads can favour the production of plant species preferred by the moose. This is thought to redirect the moose´s browsing to the Roadsides and thereby decrease the damages on commercial forest.The aim of this study has been to present a first evaluation of the vegetation in Roadsides, one year after wildlife-adapted Roadside clearing has been undertaken. In the wildlifeadapted clearing operation, the Roadside was widened by removal of some trees in the forest edge whereupon a complementary clearing with a conventional chain flail was conducted.

Stump wood is a hot alternative when the heating plants demands more and more forest fuel. The aim with the study has bean to calculate the costs in four different systems for transportations of stump wood, examine if there are any differences in fuel quality for the stump wood in the different systems, analyse if the fuel quality in stump wood is affected with the time it lays by the road side and how much space the stump wood demands on the road side. To calculate the costs for the different systems a system analysis was carried out, where some of the costs were collected through field studies on Holmen Skog stump experiment and other costs were collected from literature and contacts. Data for the fuel quality study was collected from Eons heat plant in Norrköping. Data for the study of how much space stump wood takes along a Roadside was collected from field studies.

Forest biomass is becoming an increasingly important source of renewable energy, and thereby the demand is increasing. There is currently 213 000 km of forest roads in Sweden that could be suitable for biomass harvesting. Harvest of biomass along forest roads both provides biomass and maintains the quality of the roads. Currently, the volume of biomass along roads can only be assessed post harvest, chipping and industry deliverance. As the decision of whether or not to harvest should preferably be based on more than experience, the TJ-method has been proposed. The TJ-method is a subjective method to quickly determine the dry matter quantity with the assessment being conducted from the Roadside.

Fuel wood is currently the third largest assortment from the forest in Sweden after pulpwood and lumber. Branches and tops i.e. logging residues are one of the assortments of fuel wood which is a common by-product after harvesting nowadays. The way to utilize, disintegrate and transport the logging residues varies between northern and southern Sweden. Branches and tops are collected throughout the year at appropriate stands, but are consumed mainly wintertime.

In this report the situation for cyclists on 2+1-roads is analysed and studied. Theseroads are often the old 13-meter roads that have been changed into 2+1 to increasethe security. Two road sections outside Motala in Sweden has been deep studiedand analysed. The different parts in the planning process show how the progressgoes. To begin with the change should be within the old 13 meters but after thepilot study was circulated for comments the result became a broadening to 13,75and 14,00 meters.

At the end of 70s and the beginning of 80s, 18 terminals was built and used for chipping wood residue from clear cuttings. Most of the terminals was terminated before the 2000s but with the high oil- and energy prices that we can see today there might be a place for these terminals again. The goal with the study was to analyze and compare economical differences between 5 different logistical systems, collected data was used with a set of formulas. The systems include long range transport of slash, chips and bundles. Three of the systems include transport by lorry to industry the last two includes a terminal with access to train transport.

To regularly remove woody vegetation along the Roadside of forest roads is an important part of the road maintenance, since the vegetation binds moisture in the road side and, thus, the removal makes the road drying faster with results in improved bearing capacity. Vegetation removal also makes it easier to upgrade the road by material recycling from the ditch and, moreover, the visibility along the road is maintained.The aim of the study was to evaluate what type of chain flail is the best and most cost-effective for removal of different kind of woody vegetation along forest Roadsides.Time studies were made on two chain flails when removing woody vegetation in three different classes; easy-, middle- and heavy shrub removal. The studied flails were one light and rather simple flail named Optimal M160 and a heavier and more advanced flail named Slagkraft H210. The removal was made according to Holmen Skogs? specification and the quality of the cleaning was measured by objective belt inventory.The productivity was higher with the heavy flail within all cleaning classes.

In Sweden, harvesting pre-commercial thinning (PCT) stems for energy purposes is a interesting way of financing the high cost of preparing dense stands for a profitable first conventional thinning. This concept can be labelled bioenergy thinning. The aim of this study was to quantify the productivity of a Vimek 404R light harvester with an accumulating Naarva-Grip cutting head during the bioenergy thinning of a self-regenerated stand west of Sunnansjö in Dalarna. The stand was birch-dominated, contained 15 371 stems/ha, and measured on average 4,6 cm Dbh and 7 m tall. Even though the driver was well experienced with the machine, the stand in question was the first one that he ever thinned in this manner. Nevertheless, the driver strived to accumulate as many stems as possible during each crane cycle and chose to cut taller stems in half so as to make the handling and forwarding of the harvested stems easier.

Stump wood was used between 1850 and 1950 for production of tar and as firewood. In the 1950s the use decreased because of the introduction of the cheap fossil oil. In the 1970s stump wood became an interesting issue again as a raw material for the pulp industry. Stump lifting has today become a possible source for bioenergy. The objectives with this study were to investigate the productivity of stump lifting and stump extraction, and to analyse the economy.