Evaluation of Risk Acceptance Criteria for Transporting Hazardous Materials

2020Technical Report 2018 and November 2019Shurland, MelissaPDFTech ReportDOT/FRA/ORD-20/06DE-NA0003525SAND2020-2467 R693JJ618N000044Liquefied natural gasCompressed natural gasHybrid vehiclesRisk assessmentDual powered locomotivesLocomotivesHazardous materialsRolling stockLNGsafety assessmentsdual-fuelCNGrisk criteriaquantitative risk assessmentQRAUnited StatesUnited States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad AdministrationEhrhart, Brian D.Brooks, DustyMuna, Alice B.LaFleur, ChrisSandia National LaboratoriesUnited States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Railroad Policy and DevelopmentUnited States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Research, Development, and TechnologyFederal Railroad AdministrationThis report reviews and offers recommendations from Sandia National Laboratories of risk acceptance criteria for the transportation of hazardous materials in the U.S. The risk criteria should be used with the results of a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) in risk acceptance decision-making. The QRA for transportation risk is fundamentally the same as a fixed facility. However, there are differences in calculations of both the probabilities of occurrence and the location of hazards. Involuntary individual fatality risk is recommended to be acceptable for annual probabilities of less than 3 x 10-7 for any population, including vulnerable populations, and may be considered acceptable at the regulators discretion for non-sensitive/non-vulnerable populations if less than 5 x 10-5 and demonstrated to be as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP). Societal risk is recommended to be acceptable if the annual frequency of events that would result in N or more fatalities is less than 10-5/N events per year and may be considered acceptable at the regulators discretion if less than 10-3/N events per year and demonstrated to be ALARP. These criteria should be applied to the societal risk over the entire transportation route, not normalized per-distance. These values are adapted from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 59A, a U.S. and international standard for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility siting.88