Fuel-Efficient Road Classification Methodology for Sustainable Open Pit Mining

The roughness of haul roads significantly impacts fuel consumption in open-pit coal mine trucks, yet there is currently a lack of quantitative road classification methods in this regard. This study proposes a fuel-efficient road classification methodology for open-pit coal mines. Using UAV-captured point cloud data of mine roads as the basis for roughness analysis and the International Roughness Index (IRI) as the evaluation metric, the research establishes linear relationships between IRI and fuel consumption for both loaded and unloaded trucks. The K-means clustering algorithm is employed to classify road quality into “good”, “moderate”, and “poor” categories, with the Haerwusu Open-pit Coal Mine serving as a case study. Results demonstrate that 150 m represents an appropriate IRI segmentation interval for Haerwusu, with IRI thresholds of 12 (15) and 20 (21) serving as critical segmentation points for loaded (unloaded) trucks. From analyzing two end-slope roads in the case study mine we found that upgrading “poor” roads to “moderate” quality could reduce fuel costs by 3% for loaded trucks and 2% for unloaded trucks. This study provides a quantitative road classification method for open-pit coal mines, offering a theoretical foundation for reducing transportation costs and promoting sustainable mining development.