The objective of this work is to estimate the risk of transporting hazardous materials and to develop a comprehensive method by which to evaluate risks in routing this type of cargo. The work will address some of the deficiencies encountered in previous attempts where estimation procedures were poorly defined, biases intrinsic to individual approaches were not considered, the problem of aggregating risk estimates from alternative procedures were given little attention, and the impacts of these inadequacies on optimal route assignment were not examined. These concerns will be examined by using statistical inference, analytical models, Bayesian analysis, fault and event trees, extreme value theory, network optimization, and information theoretic models. Results from this research will contribute to design, plan, implement and operate an inter- and intra-state transportation system able to transport safely shipments of hazardous materials.
