ABSTRACT
It is a well-known fact that the shovel-truck systems commonly applied in open-pit mining are very expensive, especially where operational cost is concerned. It has been assessed (Woodrow 1992, Bozorgebrahimi et al. 2003) that the cost of loading and hauling is approximately 60-65% of the total operating costs of open-pit mining, and the haulage cost alone is about 40-50% of total operating costs (Wang and Zhao 1997, Woodrow 1992). Some researchers are of the opinion that this latter figure is even as high as 60% (Fabian 1989). For these reasons every proposition to reduce these costs is most welcome and carefully analysed.
