ASSESSING THE RISK AND SAFETY IN THE TRANSPORTATION OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

The transportation of hazardous materials is a broad and complex topic, which is made unmanageable by a morass of regulatory measures at several levels of government. Risk asessment methodologies provide the best means of helping community-level practitioners come to grips with local fears and perceptions. Current approaches to the development of risk assessment methods tend toward the relative rather than the absolute formulations needed by local authorities. The differences between these approaches are discussed. Although it is impractical to achieve a truly absolute risk- or safety-assessment model, an approach is suggested for a more realistic manner of determining an overall safety situation rather than simply risk-of-incident. By concentrating on the highway transportation mode for simplicity of analysis, a set of model formulations is developed that leads to a community safety assessment index. This index is, in turn, made up of a community preparedness index and a community risk index. The argument is made that risk assessment techniques as presently offered provide no distinction between these two means of measuring current safety (preparedness and risk), and do not distinguish between those variables within the control of communities and those beyond that control. A case study is presented for a hypothetical city, Newtown, New Guernsey, which illustrates how such a community assessment index might be calculated and how its results might be interpreted.

• Record URL:
  • http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1985/1020/1020-002.pdf
• Summary URL:
  • https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=ASSESSING+THE+RISK+AND+SAFETY+IN+THE+TRANSPORTATION+OF+HAZARDOUS+MATERIALS&author=R.+Scanlon&author=E.+Cantilli&publication_year=1985
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• Supplemental Notes:
  • Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Publication of this paper sponsored by Committee on Transportation of Hazardous Materials.
• Authors:
  • Scanlon, Raymond D
  • Cantilli, Edmund J
• Publication Date: 1985

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 6-11
• Monograph Title: Improving transportation of hazardous materials through risk assessment and routing
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 1020
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Disaster preparedness; Disasters and emergency operations; Hazardous materials; Local government; Mathematical models; Ratios; Risk assessment; Safety; Spills (Pollution)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Models
• Old TRIS Terms: Indexes, ratios; Spillage
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00457829
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309039096
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Aug 31 1987 12:00AM