Journal of Hazardous Materials, Vol.167, No.1-3, 374-382, 2009
Utilization of accident databases and fuzzy sets to estimate frequency of HazMat transport accidents
Risk assessment and management of transportation of hazardous materials (HazMat) require the estimation of accident frequency. This paper presents a methodology to estimate hazardous materials transportation accident frequency by utilizing publicly available databases and expert knowledge. The estimation process addresses route-dependent and route-independent variables. Negative binomial regression is applied to an analysis of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) accident database to derive basic accident frequency as a function of route-dependent variables, while the effects of route-independent variables are modeled by fuzzy logic. The integrated methodology provides the basis for an overall transportation risk analysis, which can be used later to develop a decision support system. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Transportation risk analysis;Hazardous materials transportation;Accident frequency;Negative binomial regression;Fuzzy logic model