Decision support systems for dangerous goods transportation

This paper describes three information and decision support systems for the transportation of hazardous materials which improve the availability and fast access to relevant data and information, and support the quick and effective generation, display, analysis, evaluation and comparison of different alternatives. Some basic principles and building blocks are also discussed. The systems developed and implemented by IIASA’s {Advanced Computer Applications} (ACA) project are: (1) IRIMS, a decision-oriented prototype system for the management of hazardous substances and industrial risk. (2) A transportation risk assessment system which has been developed for the region Haute Normandie (France). (3) XENVIS, an interactive information and decision support system, applied to problems of industrial risk and hazardous substances management in The Netherlands. Common to all three systems is the integration of databases, modeling, and optimization technqiues, the coupling with a geographical information system, as well as the use of symbolic user interfaces and computer graphics, to provide an efficient and convenient framework and information basis for decision making.