Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
Memorial University of Newfoundland
$16,000.00
Transportation of hazardous materials
EF 2008-09
Résumé
Hazardous Materials (hazmats) are an integral part of any developed society. There are 74,000 daily shipments of hazmats in Canada and 800,000 in the United States. Although these are the aggregate numbers for all modes of transportation, roughly 90% of the shipments are moved by trucks and trains in both the countries. In Canada the quantum moved by trains is rather comparable to that moved by trucks, but an overwhelming amount of research on hazmats focused on highway shipments. Motivated by this I developed a risk assessment methodology for railroad transportation of hazmats, which was independent of accident rates and established a relation between hazmat volume and consequence. Accident rate based analysis is often vulnerable to absence of enough data points, but the above methodology enabled me to tide over this limitation. The risk assessment methodology was then used to model the operations of freight trains in a railroad network, where freight involved both hazardous and regular cargo. Through this Discovery Grant, I intend to study hazmat risk in railroad, maritime and intermodal transportation frameworks. Within the railroad domain, measures and mitigation of risk, development and implementation of a new railcar blocking technique, and scheduling of unit-trains would be studied. Risk assessment, estimation and assignment of transportation and risk costs, and scheduling of container ships will be studied in context of maritime transportation. Conditions of dominance, routing models and their solution methodologies in context of rail-truck intermodal transportation system, and investigating other forms of intermodalism constitute other projects in intermodal transportation. The long term objective of this proposal is to develop methodologies and techniques for the assessment and mitigation of hazmat transportation risk, and also to develop decision support systems for managers and regulators to facilitate safe and secure transportation of hazardous shipments.
Programme
Discovery Grants Program - Individual
Bénéficiaire
Emplacement
Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Type de bénéficiaire
Academia
Type
Grant
Source
NSERC's Awards Data
Tel que publié
Application id
312936-2006
Name nom
Verma, Manish
Department département
Business Administration, Faculty of
Organization id
89
Institution établissement
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Province en
Newfoundland and Labrador
Province fr
Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador
Country en
CANADA
Country fr
CANADA
Fiscal year exercice financier
2008
Competition year année de concours
2006
Award amount
16000
Program id
RGPIN
Program nane en
Discovery Grants Program - Individual
Program name fr
Programme de subventions à la découverte - individuelles
Group en
Discovery grants programs
Group fr
Programmes de subventions à la découverte
Committee code
20
Committee name en
Industrial Engineering
Committee name fr
Génie industriel
Area of application code
9999
Area of application group en
Not available
Area of application group fr
Non disponible
Area of application en
Not available
Area of application fr
Non disponible
Research subject code
1606
Research subject group en
Industrial engineering
Research subject group fr
Génie industriel
Research subject en
Operations management
Research subject fr
Gestion de la production
Partie
3
Nb partie
5
Application title
Transportation of hazardous materials
Keyword
NA
Application summary
Hazardous Materials (hazmats) are an integral part of any developed society. There are 74,000 daily shipments of hazmats in Canada and 800,000 in the United States. Although these are the aggregate numbers for all modes of transportation, roughly 90% of the shipments are moved by trucks and trains in both the countries. In Canada the quantum moved by trains is rather comparable to that moved by trucks, but an overwhelming amount of research on hazmats focused on highway shipments. Motivated by this I developed a risk assessment methodology for railroad transportation of hazmats, which was independent of accident rates and established a relation between hazmat volume and consequence. Accident rate based analysis is often vulnerable to absence of enough data points, but the above methodology enabled me to tide over this limitation. The risk assessment methodology was then used to model the operations of freight trains in a railroad network, where freight involved both hazardous and regular cargo. Through this Discovery Grant, I intend to study hazmat risk in railroad, maritime and intermodal transportation frameworks. Within the railroad domain, measures and mitigation of risk, development and implementation of a new railcar blocking technique, and scheduling of unit-trains would be studied. Risk assessment, estimation and assignment of transportation and risk costs, and scheduling of container ships will be studied in context of maritime transportation. Conditions of dominance, routing models and their solution methodologies in context of rail-truck intermodal transportation system, and investigating other forms of intermodalism constitute other projects in intermodal transportation. The long term objective of this proposal is to develop methodologies and techniques for the assessment and mitigation of hazmat transportation risk, and also to develop decision support systems for managers and regulators to facilitate safe and secure transportation of hazardous shipments.
