Integrated Risk Management Framework for Improving the Safety of Hazardous Materials Transportation by Rail

Millions of carloads of hazardous materials are transported annually throughout the North American railway network. The risk of hazardous materials release incidents makes railway transportation safety a high priority. A number of strategies have been implemented or are in development to reduce the risk. Each risk reduction strategy has a particular effect on safety and different risk reduction strategies may have interactive effects. Little prior research has addressed these interactive effects among different risk reduction strategies, nor how elements of them should be compared and/or combined to achieve the maximum risk reduction in the most cost-effective manner. This paper develops an integrated risk management framework to estimate the levels of risk reduction due to prevention of major accident causes, modification of tank car safety design or/and changes in operational practices such as train speed reduction. The model has the potential to be implemented into railways’ risk management system for local, regional and system-wide safety improvement.