RISK ASSESSMENT/VULNERABILITY USERS MANUAL FOR SMALL COMMUNITIES AND RURAL AREAS. FINAL REPORT. REVISED JUNE 1983 AND MARCH 1986

This manual was written for communities with populations less than 50,000. Its primary objective is to alert officials of these communities of the threat to life, property and environment from the transportation of hazardous materials. A secondary objective was to keep it simple. It is intended primarily for communities whose officials have little or no technical expertise in hazardous materials transportation. The manual takes local officials through the process of acquiring and analyzing data to determine their risk and their vulnerability (a function of risk and preparedness). To those knowledgeable in traditional risk analysis, risk is usually defined as the probability of an incident times the consequence of the accident/incident. The manual leads one through this process with the use of surrogate variables and empirical charts and tables, without even mentioning probability or consequences in the manner that a technical analyst would proceed. The user is told in a step-by-step manner what data to get, where to get it and how to use it. He/She uses charts and tables to get risk and consequence subfactors that are summed to the community's risk. Then the user is led through a series of steps to determine the community's preparedness. Finally, a table gives the user guidelines in regard to community vulnerability based on the risk and level of preparedness. Going through the process alerts communities to potential problems and how vulnerable they are to them. In a model update section, a suggested revision to the model by William D. Rowe (NCHRP Syntnesis of Highway Practice 103) to further simplify the model with a "scoping" technique using only three common materials (gasoline, chlorine and anhydrous ammonia) is presented. Also presented is a summary of modifications and use by a large metropolitan area in California.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This is the report as revised June 1983 and March 1986.
• Corporate Authors:

  Kansas State University, Manhattan

  Department of Civil Engineering, Fiedler Hall
  Manhattan, KS  United States  66506

  Office of the Secretary of Transportation

  University Research Office, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Russell, E R
  • Smaltz, J J
  • Lambert, J P
  • Deines, V P
  • Jepsen, R L
  • JOSHI, P G
  • Mansfield, T R
• Publication Date: 1981-10

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; References;
• Pagination: 142 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communities; Data analysis; Data collection; Disaster preparedness; Disasters and emergency operations; Hazardous materials; Local government; Manuals; Mathematical analysis; Risk assessment; Rural areas; Small cities; Small towns; Training
• Identifier Terms: U.S. Department of Transportation
• Uncontrolled Terms: Vulnerability
• Old TRIS Terms: Ost university research
• Subject Areas: Education and Training; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00461761
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Office of the Secretary of Transportation
• Report/Paper Numbers: DOT/OST/P-34/86/043
• Contract Numbers: DOT-RC-92013
• Files: TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: Jan 31 1987 12:00AM