Solving Bi-Objective Vehicle Routing Problems with Driving Risk Consideration for Hazardous Materials Transportation

Hazardous materials traffic originates and terminates at numerous locations throughout the North American railroad network. Rerouting of this traffic, especially toxic inhalation hazard materials, away from populated areas has received considerable attention in recent years as a means of reducing risk. However, rerouting on a route-specific basis is neither simple nor necessarily effective at reducing risk because of physical constraints in the configuration of the rail network and the possible need to increase the miles traveled by hazardous materials so as to avoid populated areas. A more comprehensive approach is rationalization of the transportation route structure for these materials. This does not simply involve trying to reroute traffic between the current set of origins and destinations to avoid population centers en route. Instead, route rationalization encompasses analysis of the entire route structure for a particular material. The objective is to identify opportunities to reduce risk by considering critical factors associated with each possible route, while simultaneously taking into account the production and consumption levels at each location in the network. This paper presents a risk analysis model combined with an optimization technique to formally consider risk reduction by means of rationalization of the hazardous materials transportation rail route structure. The model is flexible and enables optimization of the route structure based on a variety of possible objective functions, including minimization of miles traveled, accident (derailment) probability, likelihood of release, population exposure, and risk.

With the increasing demand for hazardous materials (hazmat) from enterprises, port chemical industrial parks face growing risks in hazardous material transportation. By using internal road network information of parks, this study investigates the hazmat vehicle routing problem (HVRP) under different road conditions, with a bi-objective of minimizing total transportation risk and cost. The two main innovations are as follows. First, according to the grid-like road conditions in parks, the research scope of transportation segments of hazmat vehicles is divided into straight segments and curved segments. Second, the potential affected area of an accident is defined as a type of geometric shape associated with a series of factors refined from transportation situations. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage ant colony optimization (TSACO) algorithm is verified through one instance using field data from a real port chemical industry park, and twelve instances from the classical capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) resource.

This paper presents a variant of vehicle routing problem, incorporating factors of transportation costs in conjunction with adverse situations. The effects of hazardous materials (HazMat) transportation are examined on air-pollution exposure levels, as well as the risk and damage in the case of accidents. In an urban network, the various weights that can be are assigned to each road of a route are associated to the following factors: time, cost, pollution exposure levels, and the risk of damage in HazMat transportation. These weights express the travel cost and the estimated provoked adverse consequences at each road of a vehicle transit route between two disparate points of the network concerning the pollution and risk of unforeseen accident during hazardous materials transportation. The sum of the weights assigned to every road of a route represents the route value according to the corresponding factors. We introduce an optimization criterion in order to select the optimal route among all vehicle transition routes joining any given pair of the network points that does not surpass a predefined threshold route value for each factor. The predefined weights for each factor are a percentage increment of its corresponding shortest route value. The optimal location of a central depot is determined where each vehicle serves a customer using one specific route with respect to the posed restrictions. Subsequently, a suitable partition into sub-networks is carried out in the case of large urban areas and a depot is assigned to each sub-network by applying a specific optimization criterion. A branch and bound tree search algorithm is developed for the determination of the optimal routes while the locations of the depots are investigated within the framework of graph theory. Finally, small numerical examples are given.

Increased public concern about the transportation of hazardous materials has caused the assurance of safe transport of this material to be a pressing national need. United States Department of Energy (DOE) programs involve the transportation of many hazardous and radioactive materials, and the national need to assure that these materials are transported in a safe manner is being addressed through the application of technology developed as part of the DOE/Albuquerque Operations Office's Transportation Base Technology Program. Currently the Albuquerque Operations Office is the integrator of DOE's Transportation Base Technology Program. Activities in this area include: packaging development, engineering analysis, testing, advanced technology development, packaging certification support, regulatory standards development, information systems management, and risk and systems analysis support. This paper addresses the specifics of DOE activities in these areas.

Hazardous material transportation is one of the main concerns due to the nature of hazardous materials and their incident impacts. In general, transport risk is a main attribute to develop mathematical models for hazardous material routing problem as well as network designing or improving road safety. This paper presents a chaotic-simulation based model to determine the high selected links to improve road network quality for hazardous material transportation, in which risk is considered as a chaotic variable over the network whereas a simulation technique has been applied to cover a wide range of selecting paths. A real road network, consists of fifty-nine nodes and eighty two-way edges, is used for running the mathematical model and checking validation. Due to the large amounts of hazardous material transported by trucks, the proposed methodology is focused on fuel transportation, and high selected list of edges (links) has been obtained to improve road safety. Sensitivity analysis revealed that using different seeds for generating transport risk has no significant effects on finding the most frequent paths and high selected edges.

The transportation of hazardous materials is always accompanied by considerable risk that will impact public and environment security. As an efficient and reliable transportation organization, a multimodal service should participate in the transportation of hazardous materials. In this study, we focus on transporting hazardous materials through the multimodal service network and explore the hazardous materials multimodal routing problem from the operational level of network planning. To formulate this problem more practicably, minimizing the total generalized costs of transporting the hazardous materials and the social risk along the planned routes are set as the optimization objectives. Meanwhile, the following formulation characteristics will be comprehensively modelled: (1) specific customer demands; (2) multiple hazardous material flows; (3) capacitated schedule-based rail service and uncapacitated time-flexible road service; and (4) environmental risk constraint. A bi-objective mixed integer nonlinear programming model is first built to formulate the routing problem that combines the formulation characteristics above. Then linear reformations are developed to linearize and improve the initial model so that it can be effectively solved by exact solution algorithms on standard mathematical programming software. By utilizing the normalized weighted sum method, we can generate the Pareto solutions to the bi-objective optimization problem for a specific case. Finally, a large-scale empirical case study from the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region in China is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methods in dealing with the practical problem. Various scenarios are also discussed in the case study.

Mixed Integer Linear Programming Model for Vehicle Routing Problem for Hazardous Materials Transportation

Abstract: The subject of the article are regulations regarding transport of hazardous materials in road transportation. In Poland, as well as in most European countries, these regulations are mainly governed by the ADR Agreement, which is a supra-national legal act. The article contains an analysis of the mentioned legal act. Despite the fact that the ADR Agreement harmonizes regulations concerning the transport of hazardous materials, there are domestic standards that differ slightly from the provisions of this agreement. The article also describes parking facilities for vehicles carrying hazardous materials in Poland and presents statistical data regarding parking spaces for this type of vehicles. Keywords: Road transport; Hazardous materials; ADR Agreement; Parking spaces; MOP

This paper attempts to address the issue of transporting hazardous materials and the question whether this activity constitutes a significant problem on Arizona's low volume roads. Problems related to lack of data required for most of existing risk assessment models are discussed. A preliminary risk assessment, conducted by the use of a screening model, attested that of the total state low volume road mileage, only 30% may need further, and more detailed, hazardous materials transportation risk analysis. The remaining 70% is currently free of any significant risk.

Increasing industrialization and globalization has spawned the unprecedented generation of environmental toxic and hazardous wastes. The existence of publicly known hazardous waste problems such as toxic spills, and river pollution that pose serious and very real threats to human health puts extensive pressure on the government to take an aggressive role in hazardous waste control and transportation. The main objective of hazardous waste transportation is public safety. Each government has the responsibility to ensure that hazardous materials should be transported safely for the social and economic good of the country. Hazardous waste management is now a major and urgent global concern. Various techniques, models, and guidelines for the perception of risks associated with the transport of the hazardous materials are developed. Database of the accident data are developed by transportation agencies to be used for the development of models to improve safety of hazardous waste transportation. Based on the available risk perception models, accident models, the type of hazardous material, origin/destination, and the availability of emergency response routes for their transport are properly designed. Advanced technologies, automated vehicle location system (AVL) and geographical information system (GIS) are also used for the analysis and modeling for the safe transport of hazardous materials. The purpose of this project is to present a literature review of hazardous waste materials and their impact on human health, regulations to control the movement of hazardous materials, Basel Convention and its effectiveness, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials, model developments for risk perception and management and the use of advanced technologies for safe transportation of hazardous wastes. Based on the literature review, the conclusions and future recommendations for possible improvement of the models and techniques used for safe transportation of hazardous wastes are presented.

In order to minimize the occurrence of large-scale accidents resulting from the transportation of hazardous materials (HAZMAT) on urban roadways, a system to monitor freight vehicle movements in real-time is being implemented. Although monitoring systems are in place, no prioritization strategy has been prepared for the selection of vehicles by the companies handling HAZMAT. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the factors affecting the level of transport management of HAZMAT handling business entities such as the freight, shipping, and vehicle characteristics, and suggests directions for effective policy enforcement of HAZMAT vehicle monitoring strategies. In this study, nation-wide survey data on the logistics status of HAZMAT handling business entities were collected, and the influence of such business entities according to their level of transport management was derived using an ordered logit model. Implications were obtained through statistical analysis of the transport management behavior of urban hazardous material handling business entities. In the future, it is necessary to study empirical methods for setting priorities based on the survey data of the entire population of HAZMAT transport vehicles.

This work proposes a multi-objective extension of a real-world inventory routing problem (IRP), a generalisation of the classical vehicle routing problem (VRP) with vendor managed inventory (VMI) replenishment. While many mathematical formulations and solution models already exist, this study incorporates business-related and risk considerations that makes it unique. It is known that a significant volume of hazardous materials travels every day. Consideration of risks arising from the transportation of hazardous materials as a criterion for selecting distribution routes could potentially reduce the likelihood of accidents and/or the expected consequences of accidents.

In 1994, Congress enacted the Hazardous Materials Transportation Authorization Act (HMTAA) to provide protection against the risks to life and property during the transportation of hazardous materials. HMTAA broadened the regulatory and enforcement authority of the Secretary of Transportation. The statute is so comprehensive that it covers the transportation of hazardous materials by: aircraft, rail, ships, and vehicles. This is EDIS document FE449, a publication of the Department of Food and Resource Economics, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, UF/IFAS, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Published December 2003. 
 https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe449

The Bureau of Explosives is now the Hazardous Materials Systems. This change indicates that a part of the Association of American Railroads is responsible for coordinating the railroad policy for the transportation of all hazardous materials, not just explosives. The Bureau assists the railroads in responding to incidents involving hazardous materials, maintains a field force of 18 inspectors to assist the railraods and chemical companies in complying with federal regulations, and publishes various documents concerning transportation of hazardous materials and emergency response. The Bureau has a laboratory that can assign the appropriate classifications to chemicals including explosives.

Medical Physicists are frequently involved in shipping radioactive materials or supervising those who do. Current U.S. Department of Transportation Hazardous Material Regulations, 49 CFR Parts 171 – 185, require hazmat employees to have documented training specified in 49 CFR 171 Subpart H. A hazmat employee is defined as an individual who: (1) loads, unloads or handles hazardous material; (2) manufactures, tests, reconditions, repairs, modifies, marks or otherwise represents containers, drums or packagings as qualified for use in the transportation of hazardous materials; (3) prepares hazardous materials for transportation; (4) is responsible for safety of transporting hazardous materials; or (5) operates a vehicle used to transport hazardous materials. Recurrent training is required at least once every three years. (The IATA two year training interval is not applicable and is generally misunderstood.) FAA has escalated inspection and enforcement and facilities who ship radiopharmaceuticals to other laboratories, return radiopharmaceuticals or radioactive sources to suppliers or otherwise ship radioactive materials have been cited for failure to provide and documents this training. The course will cover typical shipments by air and highway which are encountered in a medical institution. Items such as fissile materials, highway route controlled quantities, rail shipments, vessel shipments and such will be omitted, although specific questions may be addressed. A major objective of the course is to provide the process of shipping radioactive material in a sequential and logical fashion. Radioactive material shipments of excepted packages and Type A packages will be emphasized. The new exempt material activity concentrations and exempt consignment activity limits will be presented, as well as the new international proper shipping names and UN numbers which become mandatory on October 1, 2004. The program is designed to meet the DOT training requirements, but it is the hazmat employer's responsibility to ensure that each hazmat employee is properly trained. It is the hazmat employer's responsibility to determine the degree to which this course meets the employer's requirements, including contents of the course and the examination. Participants will gain sufficient knowledge to prepare training programs for others in their institutions. Handouts will summarize the course. A feature handout is a composite table which provides A1, A2, RQ, Exempt Concentration, and Exempt Consignment values in a single table in both Becquerel and Curie units. The examination at the conclusion will be self graded in the course and retained by the participant to form part of his training documentation. Certification of course attendance will be through the AAPM CEU documentation system.