Monitoring the Transport by Road of Hazardous Substances and Risk Reduction: Results from an Italian Case-Study

This paper presents the results of a 3-year development and testing of a pilot system that monitors in real time the transport of hazardous substance by road in Italy. The pilot-system consists of 140 on-board units installed either on a tractor or a tanker, of a national service and communication centre, of three local operational centres and of end-user terminals. The architecture of the pilot-system was decided following the results of a benchmark exercise comparing communication and geo-localization technologies. The system allows real-time monitoring and control of the movement and operations of around 70 trucks transporting GPL, fuels or other hazardous liquid substances mostly originating from Italian industrial areas. Private companies owing the 70 trucks have access to all relevant data for real-time control and a posterior analyses. Off-line data analyses assist in reconstructing the journeys of each truck, controlling the truck operations and routes, providing a better understanding of the overall spatial and temporal distribution of transported hazardous substances in a specific area, performing risk analyses, identifying and ranking hotspots, and in conjunction with additional information concerning population, critical infrastructures or other potential targets existing on the territory, providing insights as to how vulnerable the territory is to these hazardous substances or, more precisely, to their misuses. The paper develops in more detail the system analysis approach adopted to design the pilot-system and the above-mentioned functionalities related to risk assessment.

ATKINSON Martin;  DI MAURO Carmelo;  NORDVIK Jean Pierre; 

2009-07-16

Taylor & Francis/Balkema

JRC34373

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC34373,