Assessment of hazardous material risks for rail yard safety
Author
Glickman, T. S.
Erkut, E.
Date
2007Source Title
Safety Science
Print ISSN
0925-7535
Publisher
Elsevier
Volume
45
Issue
7
Pages
813 - 822
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
107
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138
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Abstract
This paper illustrates the application of quantitative risk assessment in a rail yard where tank cars
of hazardous materials are received and stored. The assessment was conducted in response to community
concerns about the safety of a proposed yard expansion. Six different chemicals are involved.
For each one, the average monthly volume and the hazard of most concern are specified. We use an
event tree populated with empirical data to compute the probability of a major spill in each case and
we estimate the corresponding critical impact distances using available modeling tools. We find that
for some of the chemicals, the relative increases in risk are appreciable, but that in all cases, the absolute
levels of risk remain low. Then we identify some ways in which such an analysis can be extended
and discuss the potential difficulties associated with these extensions.