Traffic flow control at transportation intersections in open-pit coal mines

During the relocation of crushing stations in open-pit coal mines, the haulage routes of overburden-transport trucks (overburden trucks) and coal-transport trucks (coal trucks) may intersect, which can affect transportation efficiency and may even lead to accidents. At present, studies on intersection-scheduling technologies remain at the theoretical level and differ from actual mine-site conditions. Taking the relocation of three crushing stations in the Baorixile Open-pit Coal Mine as the engineering background, a microscopic traffic flow model was established to address the route-intersection problem between overburden trucks and coal trucks, describing the motion states of individual vehicles and the overall traffic characteristics of the transportation system, with emphasis on analyzing the car-following behavior influenced by adjacent vehicles. On this basis, an intersection traffic flow control scheme based on intelligent traffic signals was proposed. By analyzing the lane-orientation combinations of the intersection and utilizing vehicle-type, speed, and other information collected by the intelligent traffic signals, a traffic-signal control scheme was developed. The vehicle-passing capacity of the intersection with and without intelligent signal control was compared. The results showed that without intelligent traffic signals, the maximum flow of overburden trucks passing through the intersection was 74 vehicles/h, which did not meet the required capacity of 112 vehicles/h and would have required increasing the number of lanes. After installing intelligent traffic signals, the maximum flow of overburden trucks reached 292 vehicles/h, meeting the required capacity without changing lane numbers, providing additional surplus capacity, and mitigating potential safety hazards.