A Literature Survey for Hazardous Materials Transportation

Introduction

Hazardous materials (also called as dangerous goods) are defined as any substance or material capable of causing harm to people, property and environment (Erkut et al., 2007). Dangerous goods are sorted into nine classes according to their properties by United Nations. These are explosive substances and articles, gases, flammable liquids, flammable solids, oxidizing substances, toxic substances, infectious substances, radioactive material, corrosive substances, miscellaneous dangerous substances and articles. The rulers in countries and the carriers must take a special care for transporting hazmats. If there is no accident then transportation of hazmats will not be different from transporting other goods. When an accident occurs then the harm to population and environment will be inevitable. Although it is vital to keep information of hazmats only few countries have special departments for transporting hazmats. These departments keep a database for all hazmat incidents and their results. Figure 1 shows the distribution of accidents by hazmat class in 2013 in USA according to information of PHMSA - US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials.

Figure 1.

Accidents by hazmat class in 2013 (PHMSA, 2014)

The Figure 1 illustrates that the majority of the accidents/incidents are flammable-combustible liquids incidents.

Hazmat can be transported by all kind of modes (air, highway, railway, water and pipeline), but they are mainly transported by road. Most of the incidents caused by hazmat carrying vehicles were resulted in fatalities, injuries and environmental damage. If an accident cause hazmat release from the vehicle, then these accidents are called as incidents. In 2013, there were 15,919 total incidents resulting 12 fatalities and $81,365,866 damages in USA (Hazmat Intelligence Portal, U.S. Department of Transportation).

The special importance of hazmat transportation forces the researchers to study on how to decrease risk or which route is the best for hazmat transportation. Risk reduction is the main subject for hazmat transportation but the cost of the transportation has to be considered equally. The researchers also searched the emergency response models and evacuation methodologies after hazmat accidents. Accident analysis was studied by the researchers to have an understanding of the results after the hazmat accidents. Not only the hazmat transportation but also hazmat waste transportation was studied by the researchers especially about the nuclear waste. From 1973 to 2014, there were 179 articles which were published in refereed journals about hazmat transportation.

In this study, a literature survey of articles about hazmat transportation was prepared. The articles published in refereed journals were taken into consideration. First, the articles were classified into eight parts (risk, routing, routing and scheduling, network design, emergency response, accident analysis) and the general explanations of these subjects were given. Later, the articles were listed in detail according to these eight classifications. The figures about the classification according to publication years and hazmat type of the articles were also given.

Hazmat Transportation Literature

Hazmat transportation was one of the main subjects of the researchers especially for the last 30 years. The special importance of hazmat transportation forced the researchers to study on how to decrease risk or which route is the best for hazmat transportation. From early 1970s hazmat transportation was one of the main concerns of researchers. Hazmat transportation literature from 1973 to 2014 can be seen in Figure 2. Figure 2 shows the number of hazmat-transportation related papers published in refereed journals.

Figure 2.

Hazmat articles with respect to publication years