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This paper explores the legal framework for hazardous substances applied in Greece, in combination with European and international legislation through the years, by addressing the core regulations enacted. These refer to the classification of hazardous substances, their transportation, the accidents' prevention and the environmental impact of such accidents. The REACH and CLP framework is presented, alongside with the adoption of its requirements by each Member State. The SEVESO III directive is analyzed, indicating the necessity of its application to more complicated cases. The significance of transportation of hazardous substances is highlighted, based on the ADR/RID/AND regulations, governing international carriage of such substances. The incorporation of Directive 2004/35/EC (ELD) regarding the environmental impact of accidents caused by hazardous substances is addressed. This analysis explicitly defines the terms this directive and its progress can establish a way of jurisdiction regarding environmental law, indicates the significance of the enforcement of the provisions regarding hazardous substances and ensures that all existing regulations conduct a more safe and environmentally friendly operation. It is essential to identify the difficulties of the establishment of a generic framework for different countries within European countries and how this frame should be updated to comprehend new members' features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To improve existing methods for safe routing when transporting hazardous materials as well as waste products. Methodology. Methods of mathematical modeling, methods of statistics, methods for predicting risks and long-term environmental consequences are used. Taking into account time factors, the distribution of population into different sections of highways is considered. Findings. Parameters of the transport network and their influence on the magnitude of the risk of an emergency situation and possible accidents in the transportation of hazardous waste (THW) are established in the work. An analysis is conducted of dangerous effects that can be caused by THW taking into account the parameters of road, transport network, type and modes of transport, and others. In order to minimize the risk of accidents during THW, it is proposed to use appropriate approaches and criteria K1 and K2, which take into account the lowest values of dangerous effects on the person during the transportation time, which allow evaluating the safety of the transportation system and the selected route, whereas their product takes into account all the possible main factors of the transportation system. Typical road and rail transport schemes have been identified to ensure a minimum number of accidents and reduce environmental and human hazards. Originality. Approaches are improved to transportation of dangerous goods by motorway and railroad, in particular, the parameters of curvature and inclination of the road, availability of settlements and bridges, meteorological conditions and traffic congestions, which improves the efficiency and safety of transportation of dangerous substances and materials. Practical value. The original mathematical models of mapping the route for transporting dangerous substances are offered while the existing ones are improved. The results of the research can be used by transport companies, public authorities in the transportation of hazardous substances and logistics and non-hazardous industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to meet the filtration separation of hazardous materials on hazardous materials collection truck, the most popular separation devices, such as the cyclone separator and the filter cartridge, are combined to form a new filtration device in this study. The advantages of the two devices are utilized to achieve effective separation of solid particles and prevent secondary pollution. Among the various structural influence factors of filtration equipment, four structural parameters that affect the separation performance significantly are selected as optimization variables. The response surface methodology was used to design the simulation experiment. Using fluid mechanics analysis software, multiple sets of parameters were simulated. Then, the simulation data was used to establish a mathematical model of separation efficiency, and structural optimization analysis was performed based on the mathematical model. Finally, the results show that the inner exhaust pipe diameter and the cone height have more influence on the efficiency of the cyclone separation structure. The interaction between the diameter and insertion depth of the inner exhaust pipe is also obvious. Among the four optimization variables, there is an optimum value for the inner exhaust pipe insertion depth, and the effect of the other three factors on the separation efficiency is monotonic. In the case of a total separation efficiency of 99.9% and after optimizing the combined model within a reasonable interval, 81.25% of the 1-μm particles can be removed by the cyclone separation part, and only 18.75% are removed by the filter cartridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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With the increase of hazardous materials (Hazmat) demand and transportation, frequent Hazmat road transportation accidents had arisen the widespread concern in the community. Thus, it is necessary to analyze the risk factors’ implications, which would make the safety of Hazmat transportation evolve from “passive type” to “active type”. In order to explore the influence of risk factors resulting in accidents and predict the occurrence of accidents under the combination of risk factors, 839 accidents that have occurred for the period 2015–2016 were collected and examined. The Bayesian network structure was established by experts’ knowledge using Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. Parameter learning was conducted by the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm in Genie 2.0. The two main results could be likely to obtain the following. (1) The Bayesian network model can explore the most probable factor or combination leading to the accident, which calculated the posterior probability of each risk factor. For example, the importance of three or more vehicles in an accident leading to the severe accident is higher than less vehicles, and in the absence of other evidences, the most probable reasons for “explosion accident” are vehicles carrying flammable liquids, larger quantity Hazmat, vehicle failure, and transporting in autumn. (2) The model can predict the occurrence of accident by setting the influence degrees of specific factor. Such that the probability of rear-end accidents caused by “speeding” is 0.42, and the probability could reach up to 0.97 when the driver is speeding at the low-class roads. Moreover, the complex logical relationship in Hazmat road transportation accidents could be obtained, and the uncertain relation among various risk factors could be expressed. These findings could provide theoretical support for transportation corporations and government department on taking effective measures to reduce the risk of Hazmat road transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Route optimization of hazardous materials transportation is one of the basic steps in ensuring the safety of hazardous materials transportation. The optimization scheme may be a security risk if road screening is not completed before the distribution route is optimized. For road screening issues of hazardous materials transportation, a road screening algorithm of hazardous materials transportation is built based on genetic algorithm and Levenberg–Marquardt neural network (GA-LM-NN) by analyzing 15 attributes data of each road network section. A multi-objective robust optimization model with adjustable robustness is constructed for the hazardous materials transportation problem of single distribution center to minimize transportation risk and time. A multi-objective genetic algorithm is designed to solve the problem according to the characteristics of the model. The algorithm uses an improved strategy to complete the selection operation, applies partial matching cross shift and single ortho swap methods to complete the crossover and mutation operation, and employs an exclusive method to construct Pareto optimal solutions. Studies show that the sets of hazardous materials transportation road can be found quickly through the proposed road screening algorithm based on GA-LM-NN, whereas the distribution route Pareto solutions with different levels of robustness can be found rapidly through the proposed multi-objective robust optimization model and algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Introduction: In this paper, a literature study on risk analysis systems for the transport of hazardous materials was conducted. Results: The insights that resulted from this literature review have led to the development of a refined approach to map the risk of hazmat transport in Flanders based on historical accident data. The proposed framework allows setting up an overall risk map for hazmat transport by different transport modes. Additionally, a methodology to calculate a local accident risk, which takes local infrastructure parameters and accident data into account, is being introduced. In the presented framework one of the general principles is that the risk of a catastrophic hazmat incident can be divided into two parts, which can both be validated on the basis of accident data: (a) the calculation of the general probability of the occurrence of an accident based on international accident data of transport of hazardous materials – this is the basis for the global risk map, and (b) the calculation of the local probability of the occurrence of an accident based on accident data and infrastructure parameters of the complete available freight transport in Flanders – this is the basis for the local risk map. The ratio between these two results in a locality parameter, which represents the local specific circumstances that can lead to an accident. Conclusions: This evaluation framework makes it possible to estimate the risks of hazmat transport along a specific route for transport by road, rail, inland navigation and even pipelines. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Adequately preparing for and responding to terrestrial (land-based) chemical spills are critical to the protection of human health and the environment. To facilitate analysis and support decision-making for such events, the authors have developed an environmental risk management system that characterizes the ability of a spilled chemical to immediately impact human health, groundwater, surface water, and soil resources, and incorporates these four risk areas into an overall measure of terrestrial chemical risk. This system incorporates a risk index model, leverages geographic information systems (GIS) technology, and contains a comprehensive chemical and environmental database to assess and delineate the immediate threat posed by a terrestrial chemical spill. It is designed to serve a variety of stakeholders, including managers and policy-makers, who would benefit from generating screening-level environmental risk assessments without requiring a technical background or collection of detailed environmental and chemical data. Areas of potential application include transportation routing, industrial zoning, environmental regulatory compliance and enforcement, spill response, and security planning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The self-accelerating decomposition temperature (SADT) is an important parameter that characterizes thermal safety at transport of self-reactive substances. A great many articles were published focusing on various methodological aspects of SADT determination. Nevertheless there remain several serious problems that require further analysis and solution. Some of them are considered in the paper. Firstly four methods suggested by the United Nations “Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods” (TDG) are surveyed in order to reveal their features and limitations. The inconsistency between two definitions of SADT is discussed afterwards. One definition is the basis for the US SADT test and the heat accumulation storage test (Dewar test), another one is used when the Adiabatic storage test or the Isothermal storage test are applied. It is shown that this inconsistency may result in getting different and, in some cases, unsafe estimates of SADT. Then the applicability of the Dewar test for determination of SADT for solids is considered. It is shown that this test can be restrictedly applied for solids provided that the appropriate scale-up procedure is available. The advanced method based on the theory of regular cooling mode is proposed, which ensures more reliable results of the Dewar test application. The last part of the paper demonstrates how the kinetics-based simulation method helps in evaluation of SADT in those complex but practical cases (in particular, stack of packagings) when neither of the methods recommended by TDG can be used. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Two accidents, Seveso 1976 and Bhopal 1984, paved the way toward the international control of hazardous substances and waste, and public dissemination of information on their releases and transfers. The final facility cleanup in Seveso took place in 1982. The remaining dioxin-containing residues were packed in 41 drums. However, the drums disappeared and were found several months later in France. This was the starting point for the development of international control on transboundary movements of waste within the OECD. Between 1983 and 1992 OECD developed five binding Council Acts on the classification and control of transboundary movements of waste. This work also provided the foundation for the adoption of a series of directives and the Shipment Regulation 259/93 within the European Community, aimed at monitoring and controlling transboundary movements of hazardous waste, and of a global instrument in 1989 under UNEP: Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal. The Bhopal 1984 and another similar accident shortly thereafter led to the development of a mandatory Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) in the United States in 1986, to inform the public of releases and transfers of potentially hazardous pollutants and waste. OECD work has supported the rapidly increasing implementation of Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) since 1994. The Basel 1989, Rotterdam 1998, and Stockholm 2001 Conventions all require strict control of the production and management of hazardous chemicals and waste. Yet, production of hazardous chemicals and generation of hazardous waste are still in rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A study of 1932 accidents that occurred during the transport of hazardous substances by road and rail from the beginning of the 20th century to July 2004 was carried out. The results obtained show an increase in the frequency of accidents over time. More than half of the accidents happened on roads (63%). The most frequent accidents were releases (78%), followed by fires (28%), explosions (14%) and gas clouds (6%). The various causes of the accidents, the type of substance involved and the consequences for the population (number of people killed, injured or evacuated) were also analysed. Among the diverse measures taken to improve this situation, the training of professional people involved in transportation seems to be of major importance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper derives six objectives for routing hazardous material by viewing shipments as a sequence of independent Bernoulli trials. An example that compares these objectives is presented. Suitable approximations toward the use of these objectives in an optimization framework are provided. The paper also discusses the objectives from the viewpoint of their use to make actual hazardous material routing decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the problem of determining a path that maximizes a multi-attribute, non-order-preserving value function. The motivating application is the determination of a most preferred path for transporting hazardous materials based on transportation cost and risk to population. A sub-path of an optimal path may not be optimal for a non-order-preserving value function, implying that a traditional application of dynamic programming may intentionally or unintentionally produce sub-optimal paths. We consider two approximation procedures for two general cases, the q = 0 case and the q > 0 case, where q is the number of required intermediate stops between origin and destination. The first approximation procedure involves applying dynamic programming as if a sub-path of an optimal path were always optimal. The second approximation procedure involves determining a linear order-preserving criterion that approximates the non-order-preserving value function and then applying dynamic programming. We use the best-first search algorithm BU* to determine optimal routes for both the q = 0 and q > 0 cases. We examine the frequency and magnitude of the resulting sub-optimalities for a multi-attribute value model based on a six-county road network that includes Cleveland, Ohio. Numerical results show that if one of the two approximations is used, significant sub-optimalities can occur over a wide range of decision maker preferences. Both approximations can produce sub-optimality error magnitudes of over 50%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the development and analysis of a mathematical model for determining a route that attempts to reduce the risk of low probability-high consequence accidents related with the transportation of hazardous materials. The approach adopted considers trade-offs between the conditional expectation of a catastrophic outcome given that an accident has occurred, and more traditional measures of risk dealing with the expected value of the consequence and the accident probability on a selected path. More specifically, the problem we address involves finding a path that minimizes the conditional expectation objective value, subject to the expected value of the consequence being lesser than or equal to a specified value v, and the probability of an accident on the path being also constrained to be no more than some value η. The values v and η are user-prescribed and could be prompted by the solution to the shortest path problems that minimize the respective corresponding linear risk functions. The proposed model is a discrete, fractional programming problem that is solved using a specialized branch-and-bound approach. A numerical example is provided for the sake of illustration, and some computational experience on randomly generated test cases is provided to study the effort required to solve this problem in different instances. The model is also tested using realistic data associated with a case concerned with routing hazardous materials through the roadways of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Data acquisition as well as algorithmic computational issues are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic loss associated with the involvement of a hazardous materials truck in an accident can be very high. Although the immediate costs are usually borne by an insurer, the carrier would incur an increase in its future insurance costs as a result. Thus, a hazardous materials carrier can benefit from considering its long-term insurance costs in routing the required shipments. In this paper, we introduce the hazardous materials routing problem under insurance costs. We present a solution methodology that facilitates evaluation of alternative routing policies. The proposed methodology involves solution of a manageable number of shortest path problems in determining the most appropriate route(s). We argue that, for each shipment, the route to be taken by the truck should be determined on the basis of the expected increase in insurance costs due to a possible accident as well as the cost of transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers integrated location and routing models for minimizing the expected number of hazardous material transport accidents. Two different routing policies are considered: (1) most reliable route planning and (2) multiple routing with random selection. Path reliability measurements are used to derive the expected number of accidents over a given planning horizon, where reliability refers to the probability of completing a journey without accident. Corresponding to the two routing policies, two location models are introduced: the reliable 1-median and a location framework for considering multiple routes. Based on realistic assumptions for assigning accident probabilities to segments created when an edge location is considered, vertex optimality results for both problems are obtained. An example to illustrate reliable routing and location in Massachusetts is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition of time-varying patterns of accident rates and exposure parameters can be used to improve routing and scheduling decisions for hazardous materials shipments. An integrated routing/scheduling approach can be used to reduce overall risk, and find preferred solutions in a multiobjective context. We describe a method for performing an integrated routing/scheduling analysis, and illustrate its use in a case study. We also construct estimates of the "value of information" for incorporation of this time-dependent data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models are formulated and computed to assess the risks of hazardous materials releases in train derailments in terms of: the probability of any number of fatalities in an accident, the probability of any total number of fatalities from all the accidents in a year, and the frequency of accidents which result in any given number of fatalities. These functions are evaluated using data bases and analytical methods which provide estimates of exposure levels (traffic volumes, track conditions and population densities), spill occurrence and spill size probabilities, and fatal spill impacts (the size of the lethal area in any given accident scenario). Despite the sparsity of historical data, this methodology enables us to express the potential for catastrophic occurrences in quantitative terms, to compare these numbers with estimates of other risks, and to examine the effects of selective variations in the model inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers two new decision-making problems in the context of transporting hazardous materials (HM). These problems are motivated by the fact that many practical situations only have a finite number of shipments of HM to be made and that shipments are likely to be suspended after a threshold number of accidents. Both problems are nonlinear, constrained shortest path problems. Exact solution methods are proposed and computational results are reported for the case where the threshold number of accidents is one. Extension of the methodology for higher values of the threshold number of accidents is also outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of determining optimal paths for routing an undesirable vehicle on a network embedded on an Euclidean plane. A typical application is the transporting of hazardous materials. Demand points, or population centers, are discretely distributed at nodes and continuously distributed on straight-line links of the network. The objective is to find, without incorporating the probability of accidental leakage of hazardous material, a path that minimizes the weighted sum of lengths over which this vehicle is within a threshold distance lambda of population centers. By appropriately redefining link lengths, we can use a shortest-path algorithm to solve the problem. Special properties of the objective function allow us to efficiently calculate the modified link lengths. We discuss the properties of the optimal routing strategy and the objective value, and offer an economic interpretation of the case when lambda varies. Operating within the framework of risk analysis, we integrate the probability of accidental release of hazardous material into our basic model. The routing objective becomes the minimization of expected damage, where accidental leakage of hazardous materials can inflict damage within a neighborhood lambda of the accident site. We also discuss our computational experience in using the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A data set of 373 past industrial security-related events was analyzed. • Sectors, threats and scenarios were investigated with correspondence analysis. • A focus on attack modes and final outcomes in process facilities was carried out. • The results point out the relevance of security events involving process facilities. • Application of results to security vulnerability and risk assessment is discussed. Industrial infrastructures, in particular those where hazardous substances are stored or handled, may be the target of malicious acts aiming at the disruption of normal operations. In the present study a toolbox of complementary and synergic techniques (Correspondence Analysis (CA), Fishbone Diagrams, Cause-Consequence Chains, Adversary Sequence Diagram, Root Cause Analysis) was applied to the in-depth analysis of physical security- and cybersecurity-related events that affected the process industry. The unprecedented original set of information obtained provides novel insights concerning these events. Clear correlations among security threats, including cyber-threats, and specific industrial sectors, as well as among the final scenarios and the different security threats from which they originate were identified by CA. In particular, vandalism resulted strongly correlated with the transportation of hazardous substances, and theft of materials with oil and gas pipelines. When considering chemical and petrochemical sites, cyber-attacks and the use of improvised explosives resulted to be the most common attack modes performed by the threat actors. Personnel and vehicle gateways resulted key elements when designing the Physical Protection System (PPS) of a facility. Insiders having the permission to enter the site bypass such controls, and were responsible of several successful attacks. Overall, the results confirm the concreteness of security-related events in the process industry and provide an original structured and detailed insight on the attack patterns experienced to date. Moreover, the results and the data obtained provide a novel set of baseline information for the application of SVA (Security Vulnerability Assessment) or SRA (Security Risk Assessment) methodologies in facilities where hazardous substances are stored or processed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]