Evaluation of safety and social indexes in the selection of transportation system alternatives (Truck-Shovel and IPCCs) in open pit mines

In any mining project, which numerous activities and various equipment are running, the safety issue is one of the most challenging matters. Accordingly, it is favorable for planners to use the safest processes and equipment in daily works. In spite of many statistical and data analysis research regarding the safety, the number of papers that consider multi-variable criteria based on a dynamic behavior are few. In this paper, common transportation equipment in mines, which are trucks and conveyor belts, are evaluated in different types of transportation systems i.e. Truck-Shovel, Fixed In-Pit Crushing and Conveying (FIPCC), Semi-Fixed In-Pit Crushing and Conveying (SFIPCC), Semi-Mobile In-Pit Crushing and Conveying (SMIPCC) and Fully Mobile In-Pit Crushing and Conveying (FMIPCC) systems. The safety and social indexes, which are the indicators of safety and social levels, are introduced and compared in different transportation systems. System dynamics modeling, as a powerful tool for simulating the behavior of a system through the time, is used to model the transportation system of an open pit mine. For this, different variables and their connections in the system, which determine the level of safety and social index, are described. It was shown that these transportation systems differently behave in case of safety and social indexes such that FMIPCC stood in the first rank in safety point of view while the Truck-Shovel system was ranked the fifth. In contrast, and in the social index, the Truck-Shovel system was titled the first and FMIPCC the last. However, for determining the best transportation system in the both safety and social indexes, weighing and normalization processes were performed. System dynamics modeling can be utilized in the making decision process, which the planners want to evaluate the behavior of the system in different scenarios. This method is capable to give an insight into the current and future state of the system for any alternative.