Rules for the transportation of dangerous goods by rail: development of additions and amendments

   Transportation of dangerous goods is still an important national economic task for the major economies of the world. This is due to both large volumes of transportation and the need to ensure regulatory safety measures, as well as the introduction of new hazardous substances, materials and products into economic circulation. According to our estimates, the actively promoted green energy and green economy will require the involvement of 15–20 % more hazardous components in production than the traditional economy of the fifth way. The rapid development of transport corridors in the modern world involving all types of transport: aviation, rail, road, pipeline, river and sea (including the Northern Sea Route) can pose a significant danger for a number of reasons. During transit, as well as multimodal transportation, loads may occur that are not provided for by the conditions of transportation in the usual mode. The inevitable consequence will be the factor of additional technogenic loads on vulnerable ecosystems of territories that is given special attention in modern society.
   In our country, transportation is regulated by a significant array of regulatory legal acts and regulatory and technical documents. A large number of documents serve to solve a two-pronged problem: 1) ensuring stable and safe transportation of a wide range of specific dangerous goods in our country; 2) compliance with the conditions of barrier-free transit of goods, harmonization of domestic transportation requirements with the requirements of international freight traffic. In this paper, an attempt is made to develop additions and amendments to the rules for the transportation of dangerous goods by railways of the Russian Federation in the light of the need to harmonize conditions and unify requirements.
   Proposals have been developed to adjust the transportation conditions of new dangerous goods to the railway transport of the Russian Federation. First of all, the results relate to the attribution of new dangerous goods and the correlation of this cargo attribution with the relevant emergency card. The harmonization methodology of domestic and international requirements, previously described and repeatedly successfully applied by us, based on comparative typology and circular expert assessments, has been applied. The criterion of adequacy of the proposed solutions is the principle of reasonable sufficiency and acceptable risk.
   The main results relate to dangerous goods of the United Nations general list of nomenclature items (numbers) from 3474 to 3549 included in the list as a supplement for the period 2007–2022. New cargoes belong to hazard classes (subclasses): 2, 3, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 6.1, 6.2, 8 and 9. The theoretical significance of the work lies in the complexity and systematic approach to the analysis and processing of disparate data concerning new cargoes: UN numbers, names, main and additional hazards, packing group, emergency card. The practical importance is to ensure a sufficient level of dangerous goods transportation safety allowed on the railways of the Russian Federation in accordance with harmonized conditions.

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