Specific measures for DG-transport

A joint OECD/PIARC research project (ERS2 project: 1997-2001) led to an investigation of measures that could reduce the probability and/or consequences of an incident involving dangerous goods in a tunnel, where such goods are allowed.

Possible measures were identified and in a  second step an attempt was made at evaluating the cost-effectiveness of these measures with respect to dangerous goods hazards. The focus was put on the effectiveness of measures as costs are specific to a particular tunnel project and cannot be assessed at a general level.

Some of the possible risk reduction measures are directly taken into account in the Dangerous Goods Quantitative Risk Assessment Model (DG QRAM) developed under the project . The effectiveness of each of these measures, or each combination of measures, can be assessed by running the model with and without the measure(s) and comparing the results. A large number of tests were undertaken, and this showed that no general conclusion could be drawn regarding the effectiveness of measures because the effectiveness very much depends on the specific case. An assessment of effectiveness should thus be made on a project basis.

The effectiveness of other measures (which are not directly included in the DG-QRAM model) was much more difficult to assess and methods were proposed to take a number of them into account. More information can be found in chapter VII of the OECD project report (Risk reduction measures).