This study examines the feasibility of a cooperative research program for hazardous materials transportation. At the request of the Research and Special Programs Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Research Board convened a committee of experts to offer advice on the need for such a research program and on ways to bring it about if desirable. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the report. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the industry, describes the safety and other risks associated with hazardous materials transportation, and outlines the many roles and responsibilities of industry and government in managing these risks. Chapter 3 describes the array of federal research programs related to hazardous materials transportation. Chapter 4 reviews the kinds of problems that are candidates for cooperative research and offers example projects for illustration purposes. Chapter 5 examines several existing cooperative research programs, both within and outside the transportation sector, the kinds of research they emphasize, and how they are financed, governed, and managed. Chapter 6 examines options for structuring a hazardous materials transportation cooperative research program on the basis of insights gained from examining other cooperative research programs. Finally, Chapter 7 presents the committee's conclusions about the need for cooperative research on hazardous materials transportation, its vision for how a national cooperative research program might be organized to help address this need, and recommended next steps in bringing about such a program. (Author/publisher)
Abstract