A new risk assessment tool for multimodal transport of Dangerous Goods

At present time, future alpine railway crossings are under construction that will go through long tunnels, namely between France and Italy, the Modane base tunnel, and, in Switzerland, the Gotthard and Lôtschberg base tunnels. Crossing large mountainous areas such as the Alps and the Pyrenees means a lot of difficulties to solve. Security issues in those long tunnels have to be dealt with. Other security issues are to be addressed when Dangerous Goods go through densely populated areas, others where different means of transport (route, rail, ...) are interfaced. These evolutions will generate modifications in the means of transporting goods and also in the routes pattern. It is thus important to be able to evaluate the risks due to some goods, some means of transport on the routes. The present paper shows the INERIS ongoing research project relative to the assessment of the risk induced by the transport of Dangerous Goods by road, by rail, and by their combined means of transport. In this paper, the main features and models involved in the future multimodal QRA tool are presented

A new QRA model for rail transportation of hazardous goods

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to show the INERIS research project funded by the French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Growth and by the French Ministry of Equipment, Transportation and Buildings. This project is related to the assessment of the risk induced by the transportation of hazardous goods by road, by rail and by the combined means of transportation. The main target of this project is to develop a "multi-modal" quantitative risk assessment model (QRAM)

Prise en compte de la probabilité dans les études de dangers

Les évolutions réglementaires récentes imposent l'évaluation des probabilités d'occurrencedes accidents dans les études de dangers. Nous présentons dans cet article différentes méthodes de quantification de la probabilité, ainsi que les sources de données associées, tout en mettant l'accent sur la méthode retenue par l'INERIS. Cette méthode consiste en une évaluation semi-quantitative prenant en compte le retour d'expérience des industriels et la performance des barrières de sécurité

GIS interfaced OECD/PIARC QRA model for road transportation of hazardous goods

International audienceWithin the framework of a research project carried out for both the OECD and the PIARC, INERIS developed a Quantitative Risk Assessment Model (QRA model) for the transport of Hazardous Goods on roads including tunnel sections. This work was also carried out with the collaboration of WS-Atkins (UK) and the University of Waterloo (Canada). INERIS, which was the leading developer of this original model, launched a new research project in order to facilitate the generation of data necessary for a given risk study. A new version of the model is in development. These new developments have been funded by the French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Growth and the French Ministry of Equipment, Transport and Buildings, Tourism and the Sea. These new developments have been processed in order to enhance the user-interface performance of the original models (QRAM 3.20 and 3.60) and to extend the QRAM capacities to the study of longer routes. These objectives has been reached by the introduction of a linked Geographical Information System (GIS). In between the original model (QRA v3.20) has been used for the application of the French regulation (circular 2000-82, 30th november 2000). Up to now approximately twenty tunnel safety cases have been studied in order to choose the lowest risky route between the open air route and the tunnel one. Doing that the risk level for the road transportation of hazardous goods has been reduced. In order to have in one hand a global view of the various developments of the QRAM and in an other hand to linked these models to the European regulation framework the present paper deals with the following topics : The present regulation for the transport of dangerous goods by road in Europe, The methodology governing the QRAM, The lessons from the French application of the QRAM, The new developments for a GIS interfaced QRAM, The application of the QRAM at European and International level

Control of major accident hazards involving land transmission pipelines

International audienceThe paper will give some preliminary results based mostly on a state of the art study of risk assessment on transmission pipeline. These items are presented according to four key items related with major-accident hazards on pipelines, learning from experience on pipeline accidents, damage prevention measure, satellite surveillance and consequence calculation

A risk comparison for global decision maker : an epidemiological study

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to give an epidemiological point of view to a risk comparison problem. The problem is to give insights on risks levels of the technological man-made activities. The issue of the problem is to balance the level of requirements of regulations by their risk level to people. The idea is to compare the technological risks (fixed installations, hazardous goods transportation) to other man-made activities (at work, or during transportation by road, rail, air) in a broader context of the risk of current life activities (domestic, natural hazards, diseases). An epidemiological comparison approach has been used for this study to give some lights to the issue to global decision makers. These kind of figures are often used by various stakeholders when debating costs and benefits of risk control measures or laws versus risk acceptability's issues

Recent accident frequency on fixed installations in France and in the EU

International audienc

Logistics of dangerous goods : a GLOBAL risk assessment approach

International audienceAccidents can occur in both hazardous sites and during transportation of dangerous goods. Separate risk assessments for hazardous sites and dangerous goods transportation can lead to incoherent decisions that may increase global risk rather than reduce it. ''GLOBAL'' is a research project that started three years ago with the ambition of addressing the issue of dangerous goods logistics. As a result, a risk assessment approach that takes into account the risk generated by a whole supply chain of dangerous goods has been elaborated. Thus, the risks generated by the packaging, loading, storage and transportation of dangerous goods can be assessed within a unique and coherent framework. The relevance of such an approach can be justified in numerous ways. Firstly, it allows the industrial stakeholders to identify the best supply chains regarding, among other criteria, the resulting societal risks. It also makes it possible to have an homogeneous basis for land use planning regarding the risks generated by hazardous sites as well as logistics infrastructures of dangerous goods. The aim of this paper is to present the GLOBAL risk assessment approach and its scientific foundations in a first part, its limits and development perspectives in a second par