Although hazardous materials (hazmat) account for around 140 million tonsof all railroad freight traffic in the US, it has not received much attention from academic researchers. This is surprising especially when one considers the volume of hazmat moved by railroads in both North America and Europe. In this paper we develop a bi-objective optimization model, where cost is determined based on the characteristics of railroad industry and thedetermination of transport risk incorporates the dynamics of railroad accident. The optimization model and the solution framework is used to solvearealistic-size problem instance based in south-east US, which is then analyzed to gain managerial insights. In addition, a risk-cost frontier depicting non-dominated solutions is developed, followed by conclusion. (A) Reprinted with permission from Elsevier.
Abstract