Transportation mode and route selection

A company produced bromine in Arkansas and brominated compounds in New Jersey. A risk assessment resulted in a recommendation to consider the transfer of the bromination processes to the bromine production site in Arkansas. Economics and the decrease in risk justified such a transfer and it was done. Although safety was not the only consideration, it was an important factor in this decision. 

The physical condition and characteristics of the material shipped should be considered in transportation risk assessments on a case-by-case basis. There may be options available to reduce transportation risk by reducing the potential for releases or the severity of the effects of releases. A few possible ways of improving safety by modifying conditions are  

Select a transportation mode to minimize risks to the extent practicable. Drums, ISO tanks, tank trucks, rail tank cars, barges, and pipelines offer tradeoffs in inventory, container integrity, size of potential incidents, distance from supplier or customer, and the frequency of incidents. 

Barges may have fewer accidents than tank trucks, but the severity of a major release from a barge may be great enough to make the higher potential accident rate with tank truck shipments the better choice. 

The transportation mode used will affect the shipper s options with regard to the selection of the routing of the shipment. Using certified drivers to ship full truckloads of drums, ISO tanks, and tank 

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Step 1—Selection of Scenarios/Issues for Evaluation This step should be in alignment with the scope of the QRA and includes defining the modes of transport, hazardous material movements, package designs, and routes or route segments that will be evaluated or compared. 

They reveal that facility location problems mostly include inventory and production decisions as well while routing, transportation mode selection, and procurement integrated location decision problems receive less attention in the literature. Facility location decisions are strategic in supply chain design since a company supply chain will need to adapt to changing market needs migrating to new locations for example. They also state that most of the facility location studies consider minimization of costs as the objective. 

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