Quantitative Risk Assessment Decision-Support Model for Locating Hazardous Materials Teams

A risk-based decision-support model is presented for locating hazardous materials (hazmat) teams on a regional road network. The model attempts to minimize the total networkwide risk, while ensuring that the response times to all demand nodes are within an acceptable limit. The relevance of the model as a decision-support tool is demonstrated through a case application to a regional road network in southwestern Ontario. The case study has demonstrated some useful decision-support features of the proposed model concerning issues such as how many hazmat teams should be allocated in a region and where they should be located.