Haul roads are critical to a mine’s performance. Sub-optimal haul roads can create hidden costs through lost production, major equipment repair/replacement, tyre wear, high fuel burn, high greenhouse gas emissions and increased safety risks. In this insight, we discuss how to design, build and operate your haul roads.
Overhauling your haul roads
The hidden costs of poor-quality haul road add up over time. For example, what may seem like just a minor increase in cycle time can contribute to a large production loss over the course of a year.So, where do you start with improving your haul roads? The first step is to ensure the road specification matches its purpose. Miners should assess their haul road according to its expected traffic (high or low) and its expected permanence (1-month to life-of-mine).
There are typically two key improvements you can make to increase performance of trucks on haul roads: improving surface condition and modifying corner design/construction.
1. Having a firm, stable and strong surface reduces rolling resistance – the force needed to overcome an uneven road surface. Increased rolling resistance reduces production, increases fuel burn and adds to maintenance.
2. Under-designed corners or switchbacks slow truck speed and cycle time, ultimately resulting in lower production. Designing and building super-elevated corners is a way to safely increase truck speed and reduce cycle time to increase production.
Ensuring long term success
Launching a haul road improvement program is more than just improving the design and construction of roads. The operation needs to be reconfigured to react to changing conditions and to make it easy for continuous improvements to be put in place.
To improve haul roads, it’s essential to define the right metrics. Setting up a road inspection scorecard ensures haul roads are assessed and improvement work can be prioritised. A visual board – tracking audit results, road condition trends and other key performance indicators – is a useful tool for implementing a road campaign. Setting up these tools enables continuous improvement of haul roads, resulting in long-term benefits to a mine.
Get in touch with our mining practice for more information on how we can help you get the most out of your haul roads.
2. Under-designed corners or switchbacks slow truck speed and cycle time, ultimately resulting in lower production. Designing and building super-elevated corners is a way to safely increase truck speed and reduce cycle time to increase production.
Ensuring long term success
Launching a haul road improvement program is more than just improving the design and construction of roads. The operation needs to be reconfigured to react to changing conditions and to make it easy for continuous improvements to be put in place.
To improve haul roads, it’s essential to define the right metrics. Setting up a road inspection scorecard ensures haul roads are assessed and improvement work can be prioritised. A visual board – tracking audit results, road condition trends and other key performance indicators – is a useful tool for implementing a road campaign. Setting up these tools enables continuous improvement of haul roads, resulting in long-term benefits to a mine.
Get in touch with our mining practice for more information on how we can help you get the most out of your haul roads.
Co-written by Richard Horton and George Blomfield
