Development of RISK Management Manual with Guidelines for Road Transport of Hazardous Chemical Products

Transportation of hazardous chemical products, mainly on road, has called growing attention to several sectors associated or impacted by the activities of this segment of services, such as environmental agencies, private initiative companies and civil society as a whole; and that is mostly due to the inefficiency of risk controls imposed by these activities. That inefficiency has contributed a lot, on its turn, with the increase of accidents associated with the road transport of hazardous chemical products (flammable and/or toxic), with serious damage to human life, the environment, the social economic activities, and the public and private patrimony, which implies the need of planning actions oriented to the management of risks associated to these accidents. In face of this scenario, the current work has the objective to present guidelines for identification, analysis, assessment and management of risks in road transport of hazardous products by means of a Risk Management Manual on road routes oriented to producing and transporting companies of flammable and/or toxic products, resulting in the minimization of the occurrence of associated accidental events and their potential damage to human populations, the environment and public and private properties, exposed to the risks of those activities. These guidelines are based on the method of Risk Assessment and Analysis, which consists in the identification of possible accidental scenarios and the analysis of route vulnerability, in terms of type of transported product, sensitive points presented along the routes, and the probable accidental typologies resulting from accidental events. Based on the results of this analysis, accident control and prevention measures are defined by reducing the frequency of occurrence of the causes of accidents and minimizing their consequences. The Risk Management Manual for road transport of hazardous chemical products contemplates essential information to the management of risks identified and assessed by means of risk analysis qualitative techniques and criteria. Among the pieces of information, it is worth pointing out: a) type, quantity, movement and characteristics of the products; characterization of routes, transport, vehicles used and sensitive points along the routes; b) analysis of history of accidents; c) definition of the hypothesis and accidental scenarios; d) analysis of physical effects vulnerability associated to fires, explosions, dispersions of toxic clouds and leakage of products into water bodies; e) identification, characterization and location of sensitive points (including environmental elements) along the routes and, whenever possible, analysis of environmental sensitivity in face of the type of chemical product being transported. The Manual also contemplated the guidelines for an Emergency Action Plan (EAP), which, on its turn, is an instrument used at the event of a failure in the control of risks imposed by the transport of hazardous products, aiming at mitigating their consequences and orientating and directing stakeholders of the transport activity, whenever emergencies occur. Based on the above stated analysis, the application of the Risk Management Manual for the road transport of chemical products enables the standardization, on the part of the hazardous cargo producing and transporting companies, of risk management in road routes of transport, providing incentive to a mutual management of risks imposed by this activity, due to the similarity of hazardous products transported in the same industrial segment and/or the similarity of the types of routes used by the transporting companies.