Research On Route Optimization For Hazardous Materials Road Transportation

Along with the world’s rapid economic development, the transportation and turn-round volume of hazardous materials (HAZMATs) boost annual year, which has brought about frequent road transportation accidents. The result could be enormous number of casualties, great environmental damage and high economic losses on a large scale. Consequently, HAZMATs road transportation problem has aroused wide concern from government regulators and experts, and became one of the safety and environmental issues to be solved urgently. Zhangjiagang City, with enormous petrochemical industries, boasts the bonded area which is the only one of its kind in the inland-river-type ports in China. With respect to the HAZMATs transportation on urban and suburban road network, it is of great importance to improve the way the trucks carrying HAZMATs, so as to reduce risks and consequences of accidents, and finally protect the regional environment.In the paper, systematical analysis on risks was made in detail when the release occured during the transportation:distribution of HAZMATs road transportation was identified; accident probability modification coefficient, which was based on road inherent characteristics and actual transport situation, was introduced to revise the basic release probability; ALOHA model was applied to simulate accident scenarios, Geographical Information System (GIS) was employed to calculate the threat zone accurately; and exposed population and polluted environment were both taken into account to assess the accident results. Subsequently, the optimal routing index system was established, and then normalization and AHP were available to quantify the indexes and confirm the weight of each index. Last but not least, the proposed approach was demonstrated on the road network GIS platform, after topology processing and attributes editing, network analysis module was processed in Dijsktra algorithm, and ultimately route optimization was achieved and the optimal route of all possible goals was displayed on the road network.Results showed that the cost of the optimal route was relatively high, but probability、exposed population and other indexes were relatively low. Therefore, the comprehensive index of the optimal route was1.40, which was27%less than that of the cost-minimum route. It was verified that route optimization methodology built in the paper could provide scientific support to decision-making for the government and enterprises in Zhangjiagang City.