(61b) Concept Risk Comparison of Transportation Means

Underlying production and consumption markets are driving an increase in the transport of highly volatile liquids across the continental United States. Supply chain planning requires comparison across transportation means. The complex process of selecting a transport means and route involves a range of parameters targeting both cost and feasibility. Risk to the public along the chosen route factors into both cost and feasibility comparisons.

This paper provides a framework to compare the risk to the public from a highly volatile liquid loss of containment event from pipeline, rail, truck and barge transportation. The risk-based framework normalizes the frequency on volume and distance transported and addresses consequences in terms of potential volume lost and population density to provide a direct, lateral comparison.

A concept risk comparison tool is used to compare the different transportation options. The tool will then be evaluated to compare across several case studies to validate the assumptions applied in the analysis. This should highlight the sensitive parameters that are critical to the evaluation of the different modes of hydrocarbon transport.