| Summary: | Background: This paper focuses on operational risks of members of dangerous goods (DG) transportation chain. Due to the fact that there are multiple parties involved in handling and transportation procedures, plenty of different risks can occur during these activities with DG. According to European Commission statistics on dangerous goods transport (DGT) there are up to 80 percent of accidents that are caused by a human error, 8 percent of accidents are caused by technical failure [Eurostat 2016]. The importance of human factor in Estonia has been underestimated as parties of a DG transportation chain are not aware what operational risks are there in their daily activities with chemicals, nor the level of severity of these risks. This paper focuses on identifying and analyzing of operational risks within a dangerous goods transportation chain related to the specific participant. By identifying and evaluating risks, the most critical of them are identified and evaluated upon possible harm to the entire chain.
Methods: The paper presents a combined overview study based on theoretical aspects which are supported by results of previous studies regarding risk assessment of DG transport in practice. By implementing semi-quantitative risk assessment method, it finally allows differentiating operational risks according to their levels into acceptable, tolerable and unacceptable operational risks when transporting DG on roads.
Results: Main results of a research map and prioritize main operational risks regarding how involved parties in Estonia evaluate possible harms resulted from their activities while handling and transporting DG. Results also confirm the main finding that human factor is one of the crucial factors why accidents occur.
Conclusions: In the scope of further studies, the exact knowledge of operational risks in practice creates opportunities to manage these risks individually (from the perspective of each party separately) within the DG transportation chain. Hence, results of present study are milestones to focus on managing risks affected by human factor in road transport of DG.
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