Modeling and analysis for hazardous materials transportation: Risk analysis, routing/scheduling and facility location

The authors survey research on hazardous materials transportation in the areas of risk analysis, routing/scheduling and facility location. The present focus is primarily on work done since 1980, and on research which is methodological rather than empirical. The authors also limit their focus to transport by land-based vehicles (truck and rail), excluding pipeline, air and maritime movements. The review traces the evolution of models from single-criterion optimizations to multiobjective analyses, and highlights the emerging direction of dealing explicitly with distributions of outcomes, rather than simply optimizing expected values. The authors also indicate examples of work which integrate risk analysis with routing, and routing with facility location. They conclude with a discussion of several aspects of hazardous materials transportation which offer important challenges for further research.