Case study scenarios in site selection of hazardous material facilities based on transportation preferences

Abstract

Abstract A methodology is proposed to evaluate and rank potential sites for facilities dealing with hazardous materials (HAZMAT). The proposed methodology incorporates HAZMAT route planning into facility siting while considering transportation preferences and challenges. The area of interest is divided into smaller zones representing potential sites for a HAZMAT facility. A multimodal transportation network including railways and roads is considered for transportation of HAZMAT. Each zone is evaluated based on its accessibility from a set of selected points of interests (POIs), which are defined as potential origin/destination points for transportation of HAZMAT. The shortest routes between each POI and potential zones are evaluated based on a cost function which can accommodate multiple criteria to determine the associated disutility for each potential zone. Finally, zones are ranked based on their cumulative disutility scores. The proposed analysis method is quantitative, and at the same time it is adequately flexible to allow inclusion of subjective criteria. Application of the proposed methodology is demonstrated for identifying optimal locations for a HAZMAT facility (e.g., a nuclear facility) using the Canadian province of Saskatchewan as an example. Three scenarios were evaluated including (1) all network segments and POIs were treated equally, (2) network segments were rank ordered based on their functional classification while POIs were treated equally and (3) network segments were rank ordered based on their functional classification with preferences given to specific POI(s).