DEVELOPMENT OF A GIS-BASED HAZARDOUS MATERIALS TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM; A DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

There has been a significant growth in the amount of hazardous materials transported within the U.S. during the past few decades. More than 90% of these shipments are transported by trucks on the nation's highways. During recent years, there has also been a significant increase in the number of accidents involving hazardous materials transportation. This has compelled planners and engineers to address many issues related to the transportation of these materials, including optimizing routes to decrease the risk associated with any accidents. This report presents the development and a simple demonstration of a geographic information system (GIS) based hazardous waste transport system that is intended to reduce the impact of potential incidents regarding hazardous waste shipments through an urban area. The methodology demonstrated in this report uses a probabilistic risk assessment framework, which takes into account the probability of accidents for each road segment and the consequences of an accident, as route selection parameters. The facilities most vulnerable to the impact of accidents, such as schools, hospitals, and day care centers, are considered and should be avoided to the extent practical in the routing of hazardous materials. Vulnerability of the facilities is calculated as a function of the distance of the facilities from the transportation routes and the population of the vulnerable facility. The system uses ArcView 3.2 to perform spatial analyses to assist the optimization procedure. Network Analyst 1.0b, an extension of ArcView GIS, is used as a 'best routing' engine to calculate the safest route for the transportation of hazardous materials. The system is written in Avenue scripting language, which is the built-in object-oriented language for ArcView. The model calculates the risk for each segment, using a simple set of site conditions based on the risk analysis model, and then selects the optimized route for transportation of hazardous materials.

• Record URL:
  http://utca.eng.ua.edu/research/projects/?id=99244
• Record URL:
  https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/18000/18100/18155/PB2001106938.pdf
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Alabama, Birmingham

  Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering
  1075 13th Street South
  Birmingham, AL  United States  35294

  University of Alabama, Huntsville

  Department of Civil Engineering
  Huntsville, AL  United States  35899

  University Transportation Center for Alabama

  University of Alabama
  Tuscaloosa, AL  United States  35487
• Authors:
  • Panwhar, S T
  • Pitt, R
  • Anderson, M D
• Publication Date: 2000-12-30

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 42 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Day care centers; Geographic information systems; Hazardous materials; Hospitals; Impacts; Incident management; Optimization; Probability; Risk analysis; Risk assessment; Routes and routing; Schools; Truck crashes; Trucking safety; Urban areas
• Identifier Terms: ArcView
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Education and Training; Freight Transportation; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00813355
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: UTCA Report 99244,, Final Report
• Contract Numbers: DTRS98-G-0028
• Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS
• Created Date: Jul 14 2001 12:00AM