The Workshop was organized by OECD in co-operation with the Swedish Rescue Services Board and was held on 2-4 June in Karlstad, Sweden. Some 100 participants from 16 OECD countries attended, as well as participants from the Commission of the European Communities. More than 35 papers were presented in sessions organized as follows: Introductory discussion document on Transport of Dangerous Goods by Road; Overview of Problem: A. Statistics - Traffic Flow, B. Risk Analysis, C. Tunnels; Policy Context; Prevention: A. Operations, B. Role and Responsibilities; Emergency Preparedness and Response. Some of the conclusions may be summarized under the following headings: Information and Statistics - sharing of information, statistics and experience should be facilitated within countries and internationally e.g. by developing a scheme for collection and harmonization, especially information on environmental effects; Risk Analyses - although in some countries risk assessment methods have proved to be useful, additional work is needed to better understand the differences among the methods used as concerns their limitations, level of confidence of results and how to use; Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders - further specification should be done regarding the roles and responsibilities of the bodies concerned with dangerous goods transport, such as public authorities, consignors, carriers and customers as well as co-operative efforts; Tunnels - risk analyses should be performed for dangerous goods transport for both existing and proposed tunnels, regarded to be useful instruments for management decisions and planning considerations, respectively; Emergency Preparedness and Response - planners should be "visionary" in creating systems to provide information required by emergency respondents to develop new, more reliable systems and harmonization of existing systems should be required. For abstracts of some of the papers, see C 3646 - C 3665.
Abstract