Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

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Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

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Original article

Open-pit mine truck fuel consumption pattern and application based on

multi-dimensional features and XGBoost
Qun Wang a, Ruixin Zhang a, b, Shuaikang Lv a, Yangting Wang b, *
a
School of Energy and Mining Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
b
North China Institute of Science and Technology, Langfang 065201, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The fuel consumption cost of open-pit mine trucks accounts for up to 22% of the total cost. However, research on
Open-pit mine the fuel consumption of mine trucks has been hindered by low monitoring accuracy and unclear fuel con­
Mine truck sumption patterns. Based on the fuel consumption per cycle of mine trucks, this study analysed the fuel con­
Multi-dimensional features
sumption of 5179 transportation cycles with three types of mine trucks. First, a regression analysis was applied to
Fuel consumption pattern
reveal the non-linear pattern of the fuel consumption caused by multi-dimensional features, such as haulage
XGBoost
distance, lifting height, and operation time per cycle. Then, based on multi-dimensional features and the XGBoost
algorithm, a prediction model for the fuel consumption of mine trucks was proposed, and the R-squared and
mean absolute percent error index values were determined to be 0.93 and 8.78%, respectively. The experimental
results showed that the lifting height, load, and haulage distance were the key factors influencing the fuel
consumption of mine trucks. The fuel consumption of mine trucks during queuing cannot be ignored. These
results can be applied to formulate reasonable fuel consumption assessment indicators, truck dispatch strategies,
and cost budget plans.

Introduction fuel consumption in discontinuous or semi-continuous mining processes

Open-pit mine trucks are widely used in open-pit mines owing to
their flexibility, convenient transportation, simple organisation and
coordination, strong climbing ability, and adaptability to various com­
plex terrain conditions [1]. However, in long-term engineering practice,
the key problems of their high unit fuel consumption and high trans­
portation cost are gradually being exposed. Taking a mining area of
China Coal Group as an example, data were collected to assess the fuel
consumption, total cost ratio, and unit fuel consumption of mine trucks
from 2016 to 2018 (presented in Tables 1 and 2). Unit fuel consumption
(kg/m3) is a commonly used diesel consumption assessment index for
mine trucks. The data showed that the fuel consumption cost of mine
trucks accounted for a large proportion of the total cost in the three
open-pit mines, up to 22%. In addition, the haulage distance and lifting
height of mine 2 were much higher than those of mines 1 and 3, and the
fuel consumption and unit fuel consumption values also increased
sharply. Therefore, to reduce the fuel consumption of mine trucks, it is
necessary to carry out research on fuel consumption monitoring tech­
nologies, patterns, and prediction models for mine trucks to optimise the
in open-pit mines.
At present, the fuel consumption monitoring methods for mine trucks
in open-pit mines mainly include fuel tank level monitoring [2–4], en­
gine control unit (ECU) measurements [5,6], and manual measurements
[7], the problems of low measurement accuracy, poor application effect,
or low popularisation restricted deep excavation of fuel consumption
patterns for mine trucks in open-pit mines.
There have also been a number of limitations in previous experi­
mental investigations of fuel consumption patterns for open-pit mine
trucks, such as the inclusion of few influencing factors, small sample
sizes, and short experimental durations. These experiments generally
measured the fuel consumption pattern manually for a single truck type
under the conditions of a certain haulage distance and lifting height.
Moreover, because the actual operation conditions and labour costs
were constrained, the number of experimental samples obtained was
relatively small, and the impacts of load, operation time, and truck type
on fuel consumption were largely ignored [5,6,8].
In addition, current research methods for predicting the fuel con­
sumption of mine trucks mainly include simulation analysis, regression

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangyting@ncist.edu.cn (Y. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2020.100977
Received 28 July 2020; Received in revised form 17 December 2020; Accepted 19 December 2020
Available online 7 January 2021
2213-1388/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q. Wang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

analysis, and machine learning (summarised in Table 3). The engine fuel Table 2
consumption of a mine truck has been simulated based on the engine Statistics of the unit fuel consumption of mine trucks.
characteristics and haulage road profile parameters [9,10]. However, year Name Mine 1 Mine 2 Mine 3
the operating parameters of the engine on a haulage road consisting of
2016 Distance (km) 2.9 4.05 2.66
horizontal, uphill, and downhill sections have all been estimated Elevation (m) 41 189 34
empirically. Fuel consumption prediction models for mine trucks based Unit fuel consumption (kg/m3) 0.590 1.11 0.51
on a small number of statistical samples have been used for machine
2017 Distance (km) 2.94 4.63 2.76
learning, which provides a new concept for fuel consumption prediction Elevation (m) 51 217 26
[11–13]. By only considering the operation time per cycle and load Unit fuel consumption (kg/m3) 0.623 1.35 0.55
factors of mine trucks, multiple regression or machine learning methods 2018 Distance (km) 2.82 4.49 2.67
have been used to construct fuel consumption prediction models of mine Elevation (m) 87 194 45
trucks [14–18]. However, these models have not considered the actual Unit fuel consumption (kg/m3) 0.72 1.24 0.59
operating environment of mine trucks, such as haulage distance and
lifting height, and they cannot explain the fuel consumption of mine
trucks based on the mechanism. Table 3
Based on the truck dispatching system, this study introduced a highly Research on prediction of mine truck fuel consumption.
precise and reliable volumetric fuel consumption meter to realise an Name Characteristic parameters Prediction method
accurate measurement of real-time and cumulative fuel consumption for
Simulation Haulage road profile parameters, Simulation analysis
open-pit mine trucks. Considering the aspects of road design, mine truck analysis methods Engine power, Engine speed, Rolling
status, and personnel operation, a mine truck fuel consumption database [8,9] resistance
with multi-dimensional features was constructed to improve the accu­ Machine learning Haulage distance, Truck failure rate, Neural network
racy of the fuel consumption pattern and prediction model. On this methods Lifting height, Transportation Support vector
[10–13] volume, Loading time, Fuel machine
basis, regression analysis was used to explore the fuel consumption
consumption
pattern for multi-dimensional features. Owing to the nonlinear coupling Loading time, Heavy load time, Neural network
between the features and fuel consumption, a multi-dimensional feature Dumping time, No-load time,
prediction model for fuel consumption of mine trucks was built using a Queuing time, Load
machine learning algorithm, and the fuel consumption feature weights Regression analysis Loading time, Heavy load time, Multiple regression
methods Dumping time, No-load time, analysis
were quantified. The new integrated extreme gradation boosting [14–18] Queuing time, Load
(XGBoost) algorithm has the advantages of high precision, fast training
speed, and strong interpretability. This study aimed to use XGBoost to
develop a mine truck fuel consumption prediction model. The prediction
Table 4
results were compared with traditional machine learning algorithms
Types and parameters of mine truck equipment.
such as k-nearest neighbour (KNN), support vector machine (SVR),
neural network (NN), and random forest (RF). The results of this study Type Load (Rock) Load (Coal) Engine power Number Age
(t) (t) (kW) (y)
can be applied to formulate reasonable fuel consumption assessment
indicators, truck dispatching strategies, and cost budget plans, and also BLAZE- 220 85 1715 2212 8
75306
to optimise the fuel consumption of discontinuous or semi-continuous
SF-31904 108 60 895 1088 11
mining processes in open-pit mines. 1099 1.5
TR100 100 48 783 4009 8
Experiments and methods 4011 7

The Huolinhe open-pit mine is located in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia,

Experimental haulage road
with an approved production capacity of 18 million t/a. Raw coal
mining and rock stripping are mainly carried out using discontinuous
The main driving tracks of the five mine trucks over the period from
mining techniques, although semi-continuous mining techniques are
20 December 2019 to 13 March 2020 are shown in Fig. 1. The black lines
also used. The major equipment includes 21 electric shovels, which are
represent the rock transportation routes, with starting points A1, A2, A3,
primarily used to extract raw coal or rock and load it into mine trucks;
and A4 and ending points B1, B2, and B3. The blue lines represent the
114 mine trucks, which are used to transport raw coal or rock to the
raw coal transportation routes, with starting points C1 and C2 and
crushing station or waste dump; and three semi-fixed crushing stations,
ending points D1 and D2. The haulage roads of open-pit mines are
which are used to crush the rock and raw coal.
characterised by short distances, large lifting heights, steep slopes, and
poor road quality. In this study, four representative haulage routes were
Experimental mine trucks
selected, and the road information and elevation profiles are presented
in Table 5 and Fig. 2, respectively.
Five mine trucks were selected for these experiments. Only the SF-
31904 mine truck (No. 1088) was used to transport raw coal to the
crushing station. The equipment parameters for the five mine trucks are
summarised in Table 4.

Table 1
Statistics of the fuel consumption and cost proportion of open-pit mine trucks.
2016 2017 2018

Fuel consumption (104 t) Cost ratio (%) Fuel consumption (104 t) Cost ratio (%) Fuel consumption (104 t) Cost ratio (%)

Mine 1 4.95 21 6.1 19 5.99 22

Mine 2 6.51 21 7.34 16 7.53 18
Mine 3 3.95 13 3.80 12 4.82 13

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Q. Wang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

Fig. 1. Overview of the transportation routes.

mechanisms: fuel filtering, fuel metering, fuel return cooling, and fuel
Table 5
return exhaust. Oil inlet filtration ensures that the oval gears can work
Typical haulage routes.
steadily for more than three years. The pressure on the liquid inlet side
Number Route Distance (km) Elevation (m) of the metering chamber is greater than the pressure on the outlet side,
1 A1–B1 5 211 driving the rotation of the oval gear. The fuel consumption is measured
2 A2–B3 5 25 based on the number of rotation cycles of the gear. In addition, the
3 C1–D1 2.5 123
variation in the density of diesel with temperature is ± 0.00086/◦ C.
4 C1–D2 4.5 144
When the temperature difference in the mining area exceeds 11 ◦ C, the
diesel volume will change by 1%; thus, the fuel metering device needs to
Mine truck fuel consumption sensor include a temperature detection function. The mine truck engine has a
large oil return at a high temperature. When the engine detects that the
Open-pit mine trucks have the characteristics of heavy self-weight, oil temperature is greater than 70 ◦ C, the engine ECU alarms and reduces
heavy loads, high engine fuel consumption, and harsh working condi­ the engine oil supply, thus significantly reducing the engine power. The
tions. Taking BLAZE-75306 as an example, the self-weight and rated return oil to the engine contains a large amount of gas. If the gas in the
load are 107 and 220 t, respectively; the rated engine power is return oil is not eliminated, the engine power will drop, and even flame
approximately 1715 kW, and the average and maximum hourly fuel out can occur. Therefore, the return oil needs to be cooled and
consumption of the engine are approximately 200 and 800 L/h, exhausted.
respectively. Therefore, the fuel consumption measurement sensor
needs to meet the requirements of a wide range, high reliability, and Installation of the fuel consumption meter
high precision.
The volumetric fuel consumption meter was installed between the oil
Structure of the fuel consumption sensor inlet pipe and the oil return pipe of the mine truck engine (as shown in
Figs. 3 and 4). The data sampling frequency was 0.2 Hz. The real-time
This study introduces a volumetric oval gear flowmeter, which has fuel consumption and cumulative fuel consumption of the engine were
high measurement accuracy (±0.5%) and a wide range ratio (maximum measured by monitoring the diesel flow in the oil pipeline.
flow/minimum flow). The flowmeter is composed of four main

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Q. Wang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

Fig. 2. Elevation profiles of haulage routes.

input sample, and F represents a set of decision trees.

The goal of this study is to predict the fuel consumption of open-pit
mine trucks. The XGBoost algorithm needs to use a regression-type loss
function in the training error link; the smaller the loss function is, the
more accurate the prediction. The loss function not only considers the
training error but also adds a regularisation term. The loss function for
XGBoost (Eqs. (2) and (3)) is expressed as follows:
∑
n ∑
n
fobj = l(yi , ŷi ) + Ω(fk ), (2)
i=1 i=1

1 ∑T
Ω(fk ) = αT + λ ω2 , (3)
2 j=1 j
Fig. 3. Schematic of the fuel consumption meter installation.
wherefobj is the loss function, l(yi , ŷi ) represents the training error of
Extreme gradient boosting algorithm sample xi , ŷi and yi are the predicted and actual values of sample xi ,
respectively, Ω(fk ) is the regular term of the k-th regression tree, T
XGBoost is an efficient gradient boosting algorithm that integrates represents the number of CART leaf nodes, ωj is the weight of the j-th leaf
multiple decision trees (CART). The algorithm adopts the integration node, and α and λ are penalty coefficients.
and superposition strategies. Multiple decision trees are connected in When XGBoost uses the training data set for learning, the original
series; the loss of the previous decision tree is reduced by using the model remains unchanged each time, and a new function is added in an
gradient lifting algorithm, a new tree is generated to form a new pre­ iterative way. If the newly added function can reduce the score of the
diction model, and the cycle continues until the loss function is less than loss function, it is added to the model until the final integration model is
the expected value. Compared with conventional machine learning al­ generated. At this time, the objective loss function (Eq. (4)) is expressed
gorithms, XGBoost has a higher accuracy and faster computing speed, as
and it is widely used in the energy industry [19–21]. ∑
n
The model can be expressed by adding multiple decision trees (Eq. fobj (t) = ̂ + ft (xi )))2 + Ω(ft ) + C,
(Y i − ( Y i (4)
(1)) as follows: i=1

∑
K where ft (xi ) represents the new function added t times, and C is a
ŷi = ∅(Xi ) = fi (xi )fk ∈ F , (1) constant term independent of f.
K=1 The second-order Taylor formula is used for the approximate
where K represents the number of decision trees, xi represents the i-th expansion. Its definition is shown in Eq. (5):

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Q. Wang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

Fig. 4. Physical diagram of the fuel consumption meter installation.

1
f(x + Δx) ≅ f(x) + f ’ (x)Δx + f ’’ (x)Δx2 , (5) Table 6
2
Classification of multi-dimensional characteristic parameters of fuel
where f ’ (x)is the first derivative and f ’’ (x) is the second derivative. consumption.
The loss function is expanded using the second-order Taylor expan­ Type Characteristic Parameter
sion to obtain the approximate expression of the loss function (Eq. (6))
Road design Distance Lifting height Rolling Road
as follows: resistance maintenance
∑ n [ ( ) ]
(t− 1) 1 Mine truck Speed Truck age Truck type Truck
fobj (t) ≈ l Y i,Ŷ
i + gi ft (xi ) + hi fi2 (xi ) + Ω(ft ) + C, (6) status maintenance
2
i =1
Operation Load Driving level Operation time per cycle
( driving style
(t− 1) ) ( (t− 1) )
̂
gi = ∂ (t− 1) l Y i , Y ̂
, hi = ∂2 (t− 1) l Y i , Y
̂
Y
i ̂
Y
i

Multi-dimensional fuel consumption features of mine trucks

After simplification, the final expression for the objective loss func­
tion (Eq. (7)) is obtained:
From a macro perspective, most of the fuel consumed by mine trucks
[( ) ]
∑ T ∑ 1∑ is used to overcome the haulage distance and lifting height. The greater
(t)
fobj = gi w j + (hi + λ)w 2j + γT. (7) the haulage distance and lifting height are, the greater the fuel con­
2 i∈Ij
sumption required to transport each cubic metre of rock [22,23]. At the
j=1 i∈I j

The partial derivative of the loss function with respect to Wj is then
obtained, and the weight is obtained when the loss function reaches the
minimum value (Eq. (8)). Thus, the optimal structure of the t-th decision
tree is determined when the loss function is at a minimum (Eq. (9)):
− Gj
w *j = , (8)
Hj + λ
1∑ T
Gj
(t)
fobj = − + γT.
2 j=1 Hj + λ
Multi-dimensional features of mine truck fuel consumption
Many factors affect the fuel consumption of open-pit mine trucks. In
addition to the structural characteristics of the engine and the quality of
the mine truck assembly process, the fuel consumption is also affected
by a number of external factors such as production and equipment
maintenance. This study summarised and classified the influencing
factors for the fuel consumption of mine trucks in the categories of road
design, truck status, and personnel operation (Table 6) and initially
constructed the multi-dimensional fuel consumption features of mine
trucks. On this basis, combined with the actual operation process of
mine trucks and a Pearson correlation analysis, the multi-dimensional
fuel consumption features of mine trucks were finally determined,
which provided the fundamental basis for the development of the fuel
consumption pattern and prediction model.
same time, the fuel consumption is also related to factors such as load,
speed, truck age, truck type, and operation time per cycle. For example,
different types of mine trucks have economically optimal loads and
speeds [24,25]. The fuel consumption of trucks of different ages and
types also differs, and the older the truck is, the higher the fuel con­
sumption will be [26,27]. The operation time per cycle of mine trucks
can be subdivided into loading time, heavy load time, dumping time, no-
load time, and queuing time. The idling of the engine caused by the
queuing of mine trucks is an important reason for unnecessary fuel
(9)
consumption [14,17,28]. In addition, for factors that are uncontrollable
and difficult to quantify, the principle of approximate equivalence is
adopted for quantification; for example, the maintenance level of mine
trucks and roads remains unchanged [13]. Under the condition of
similar materials of the road surfaces in the entire mine, the haulage
road quality can be considered to have approximately the same impact
on the fuel consumption of each mine truck [13]. The speed approxi­
mation is used to measure the driving level and driving style of the
driver [29]. Finally, the data collection time is short, and thus the impact
of climate on fuel consumption is ignored. Therefore, the multi-
dimensional characteristics determining the fuel consumption of mine
trucks in open-pit mines are the haulage distance, lifting height, load,
speed, truck age, truck type, and operation time per cycle.
Mine truck operation process analysis
The operation process of the mine truck is as follows (see Fig. 5):

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Q. Wang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

Fig. 5. Mine truck operation process.
under the condition of heavy load, the mine truck transports raw coal or
rock from the loading point to the dumping point or crushing station.
Then, under the condition of no load, the mine truck returns to the
loading point from the dump site or crushing station, completing the
operation cycle of loading–hauling–dumping–returning–queuing. Based
on an analysis of the operation process of mine trucks, the haulage
distance and average speed under heavy load and no-load conditions
should be treated differently. Therefore, this study has defined each
round trip of loading–hauling–dumping–returning–queuing as the
minimum sample size of the fuel consumption data set, thus making full
use of the powerful tool of fuel consumption per cycle.
Selection of multi-dimensional features of the fuel consumption of mine
trucks
Based on the Pearson correlation analysis, the hauling time and
returning time were eliminated, and the multi-dimensional features of
the fuel consumption of mine trucks were determined (listed in Table 7).
Data cleaning was carried out on the original fuel consumption data
from the mine trucks, and 5179 fuel consumption samples were ob­
tained, of which 3906 samples were used for the transportation of rocks
and 1273 samples were used for the transportation of raw coal. All data
collected was anonymous and was not linked back to any individual
operators.
Results and discussion
Fuel consumption pattern with multi-dimensional features
The regression analysis method was applied to explore the fuel
consumption pattern for multi-dimensional features such as haulage
distance, lifting height, operation time per cycle, and truck type. In
addition, all five mine trucks were responsible for the task of trans­
porting rock. To facilitate a comparative analysis of fuel consumption
between different types of mine trucks, the fuel consumption pattern in
this section was limited to the transportation of rock by mine trucks.
(as shown in Figs. 6–8). With the increase in haulage distance and lifting
height, the fuel consumption of mine trucks also increased.
Furthermore, this study introduced the concept of load ratio. The
load ratio is defined as the ratio of load weight to total weight (the sum
of self-weight and load weight). The greater the load ratio is, the smaller
the proportion of invalid fuel consumption used to overcome the self-
weight, and thus the higher the proportion of fuel consumption used
to transport rock. As shown in Fig. 9, the unit fuel consumption of
different types of mine trucks was in the order of TR100 > SF-31904 >
BLAZE-75306, which is consistent with the load ratio rule.
Operation time per cycle and fuel consumption pattern
To investigate the influence of the operation time per cycle on the
fuel consumption of different types of mine trucks, the queuing time and
operation time per cycle were divided into groups based on intervals of
100 s, and the average fuel consumption was recorded to obtain the
relationship between the operation time and fuel consumption for
different types of mine trucks (as shown in Fig. 10). The engine power of
the TR100 mine truck was 783 kW, whereas that of the BLAZE-75306
mine truck was 1715 kW. The fuel consumption of the TR100 mine
truck during the queuing time was significant, similar to that of the
BLAZE-75306 mine truck. With increasing operation time per cycle and
lifting height, the fuel consumption rate of the BLAZE-75306 truck
increased, while the fuel consumption rate of the other truck types
remained approximately the same.
Fuel consumption prediction model with multi-dimensional features
Through the analysis of the pattern for the fuel consumption of mine
trucks with multidimensional features, it can be observed that each
feature had a generally non-linear relationship with the fuel consump­
tion. To analyse the non-linear coupling pattern between multi-
dimensional features such as the haulage distance, lifting height, load,
speed, truck age, truck type, and operation time with the fuel con­
sumption, KNN, SVR, NN, RF, and XGBoost machine learning algorithms
were used to extract knowledge from the fuel consumption data sam­
ples. Then, multi-dimensional characteristic fuel consumption predic­
tion models for mine trucks were established, and the importance of fuel
consumption features was quantified.

Haulage distance, lifting height, and fuel consumption pattern

To investigate the influence of haulage distance and lifting height on
the fuel consumption of different types of mine trucks, the relationship
between haulage distance, lifting height, and fuel consumption for
different types of mine trucks was obtained through a regression analysis

Table 7
Multi-dimensional features of the fuel consumption of mine trucks.
Number Feature name Feature symbol Unit

1 Lifting height Height m

2 Distance (load) Distance_l m
3 Distance (empty) Distance_e m
3 Load Load t
4 Average speed (load) velocity_l m/s
5 Average speed (empty) velocity_e m/s
6 Queening time Waittime s
7 Dumping time Dumptime s
8 Loading time Loadtime s
8 Truck age Truckage y
Fig. 6. Distance, lifting height, and fuel consumption pattern of SF-31904C
9 Truck type Trucktype
mine truck.

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Q. Wang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

Fig. 9. Pattern of the relationship between lifting height and unit fuel
consumption.
Fig. 7. Distance, lifting height, and fuel consumption pattern of TR100
mine truck.
Model forecast performance evaluation

(1) Evaluation of model overfitting and under-fitting

The quality of a model can be measured based on its variance and

deviation. In this study, the learning curve was used to determine
whether the prediction models had the problems of under-fitting (high
deviation) or over-fitting (high variance) [30]. If the accuracies of the
training and cross-validation sets were relatively low, the model was
considered to be under-fitting. If the accuracies of the training and cross-
validation sets were significantly different, the model was considered to
be over-fitting. If the accuracies of the training and cross-validation sets
were similar and at a high level, the model was considered to be at or
near optimal. As shown in Fig. 11, the accuracy of the cross-validation
set for each mine truck fuel consumption prediction model was
greater than 90%. With an increasing number of samples in the training
set, the distance between the accuracy curves for the training and cross-
validation sets exhibited a narrowing trend, indicating that each pre­
diction model of the fuel consumption of mine trucks was at or near the
optimal level.

(2) Evaluation of model prediction accuracy

The mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percent error

Fig. 8. Distance, lifting height, and fuel consumption pattern of BLAZE-75306 (MAPE), and R-squared value (R2) are typically used as evaluation in­
mine truck. dexes for the prediction accuracy of a model. MAE is the average re­
sidual value of the predicted value and the actual value (Eq. (10)). MAPE
Model optimal hyper-parameter search evaluates the accuracy of the prediction model in terms of the error
Based on a grid search, the important hyper-parameters of the model percentage, which is convenient when different fuel consumption pre­
were searched to obtain the optimal combination of hyper-parameters, diction models evaluate the same set of data (Eq. (11)). Smaller MAE and
which can improve the accuracy and generalisation ability of the fuel MAPE values reflect a better prediction ability of the model. R2 is used to
consumption prediction model. The fuel consumption data set was evaluate how well the model fits the data. The R2 value ranges from 0 to
divided into a test set and a training set with a ratio of 3:7. The KNN, 1 (Eq. (12)). The larger the value of R2, the better the prediction per­
SVR, NN, RF, and XGBoost algorithms were searched using a 10-fold formance of the model.
cross-validation grid to obtain the optimal hyper-parameter combina­
n ⃒ ⃒
tions. The hyper-parameter combinations and test set precisions of the 1∑ ⃒̂ ⃒
MAE = ⃒ Y i − Y i ⃒, (10)
fuel consumption prediction models are summarised in Tables 8–12. The n i =1
results indicate that the test set precision of each mine truck fuel con­ ⃒ ⃒
sumption prediction model was greater than 90%, which is close to or at 100% ∑n ⃒ ⃒Ŷ − Y ⃒⃒
the optimum of the prediction models. MAPE = ⃒ i i⃒
⃒, (11)
N i =1 ⃒⃒ Y i ⃒

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Fig. 10. Relationship between operation time and fuel consumption.

advantages of high precision, high training speed. It can also automat­

Table 8 ically provide the feature weight and increase the model interpret­
Extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) grid search parameter optimisation.
ability. Therefore, the XGBoost algorithm was selected as the mine truck
XGBoost N-estimator Max_depth Min_child_weight Test score fuel consumption prediction model. The R2 and MAPE index values of
20 7 5 93.09%
the XGBoost model were 0.93 and 8.78%, respectively, which are better
than the prediction accuracies of the NN models reported in the litera­
ture [14].
Table 9
Random forest (RF) grid search parameter optimisation. Measurement of feature importance
RF N-estimator Max_depth Test score The XGBoost model, which is based on decision trees, can quantify
70 25 92.51% the importance of fuel consumption features. As shown in Fig. 12, the
total weight of the lifting height, load, and haulage distance is 0.959,
indicating that the fuel consumption of mine trucks is mainly affected by
Table 10 lifting height, load, and haulage distance, and lifting height occupies an
K-nearest neighbour (KNN) grid search parameter optimisation. important position. Although the weight of queuing time is only 0.014,
KNN N_neighbours Weights Test score its impact on the fuel consumption of mine trucks cannot be ignored.
9 Uniform 91.19%

Solutions

Table 11 (1) Formulate reasonable fuel consumption assessment indicators

Support vector machine (SVR) grid search parameter optimisation.
SVR Kernel C Gamma Test score Different haulage roads will have different lifting heights and haul­
rbf 100 0.01 93.15% age distances; as a result, the fuel consumption of mine trucks travelling
on different haulage roads cannot be compared. Therefore, based on the
multi-dimensional feature fuel consumption pattern and fuel consump­
Table 12 tion prediction model obtained in this study, reasonable fuel consump­
Neural network (NN) grid search parameter optimisation. tion assessment indicators for mine trucks can be formulated for
NN Max_iter Alpha Test score different haulage roads.
3000 2 93.22%
(2) Formulate reasonable dispatch strategies
( )2
∑N According to the weights of the factors that affect fuel consumption,
yi
yi − ̂
i =1
the fuel consumption of mine trucks during queuing cannot be ignored.
2
R = 1− ∑N . (12)
− μ)
2
In the next step, based on the matching principle of the number of trucks
i =1 (yi
and shovels, a reasonable scheduling strategy can be formulated to
To evaluate the accuracy of the fuel consumption prediction models reduce the queuing time of mine trucks to save fuel consumption.
for mine trucks, the MAE, MAPE, and R2 (listed in Table 13) were
calculated for each fuel consumption prediction model. The evaluation (3) Formulate reasonable cost budget plans
index values for the KNN, NN, and RF models were lower than those for
the SVR and XGBoost models. Reasonable fuel consumption costs are an important part of the total
The evaluation index values for the SVR and XGBoost models were cost for open-pit mines when formulating annual operating plans. As
approximately the same. Thus, the prediction models were evaluated by historical statistics are typically quite general, it is difficult to formulate
combining the advantages and disadvantages of each algorithm. The a realistic fuel consumption indicator for mine trucks. In the next step,
kernel SVM maps data to higher dimensions to solve nonlinear prob­ based on the fuel consumption pattern and prediction model with multi-
lems. However, the prediction results of the SVM model are difficult to dimensional features, combined with the haulage distance, lifting
understand and explain, whereas the XGBoost algorithm has the height, raw coal output, stripping volume, and equipment demand in the

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Q. Wang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 43 (2021) 100977

Fig. 11. Learning curves of the fuel consumption prediction models for mine trucks.

Table 13
Model evaluation indexes.
Model R2 MAE MAPE

KNN 0.91 2.99 11.07%

SVR 0.93 2.47 8.63%
NN 0.93 2.61 9.62%
RF 0.93 2.54 9.08%
XGBoost 0.93 2.47 8.78%

annual production plan, a reasonable fuel consumption cost budget for

different truck types can be formulated.

Conclusions

(1) This study explored and quantified the fuel consumption pattern
for mine trucks in an open-pit mine. The non-linear fuel con­
sumption pattern with multi-dimensional features, such as haul­
age distance, lifting height, and operation time, was obtained for
different truck types through a regression analysis. A multi- Fig. 12. Weights of the multi-dimensional features of fuel consumption.
dimensional XGBoost fuel consumption prediction model was

9
Q. Wang et al.
also constructed. The values of the R2 and MAPE model perfor­
mance indexes were 0.93 and 8.78%, respectively. In addition,
the fuel consumption was determined to be affected primarily by
lifting height, load, and haulage distance, of which the lifting
height feature occupied an important position.
(2) The truck fuel consumption pattern was applied to operation in
open-pit mines. It was important to formulate reasonable fuel
consumption assessment indicators and fuel cost estimations for
different haulage roads. In addition, the fuel consumption of mine
trucks during the queuing time cannot be ignored. The results of
this study can be applied to reduce the fuel consumption of mine
trucks in discontinuous or semi-continuous mining processes in
open-pit mines.
(3) An oval gear flowmeter suitable for open-pit mine trucks was
introduced. This fuel consumption meter has the advantages of a
wide measuring range, high precision, and high reliability, and it
can provide reliable real-time fuel consumption and cumulative
fuel consumption data for mine trucks. Its widespread use could
thus improve the fuel consumption management of mine trucks in
open-pit mines.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Qun Wang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft,
Visualization. Ruixin Zhang: Conceptualization, Validation, Investiga­
tion, Resources, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisi­
tion. Shuaikang Lv: Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation,
Writing - original draft, Visualization. Yangting Wang: Conceptuali­
zation, Methodology, Software, Resources, Supervision, Project
administration.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
This research was funded by the National Key Research and Devel­
opment Program of China (No. 2018YFC0808306).
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