TANKER ACCIDENT RATES AND EXPECTED CONSEQUENCES IN U.S. PORTS AND HIGH SEAS REGIONS

As increasing amounts of hazardous materials cargo are transported by the marine mode, the associated risk to public safety and the environment has been a significant concern. The development of representative accident rates and consequences for marine transport has been hindered by difficulties in working with various data bases that are required to responsibly address this problem. A methodology that was developed to derive accident rates of hazardous materials marine transport in U.S. ports and high seas regions by using data collected from multiple sources is described in this paper. The focus of the study was tanker and tanker barge movements because these vessels are responsible for almost all hazardous materials movement by water. Several U.S. ports and high seas regions in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean were selected for study. The resulting accident rates were coupled with conditional spill rates and consequences to derive expected release amounts for each geographic area. Several important findings emerged, including the relative risk of hazardous material movements in the Atlantic and Gulf regions. The paper concludes with a comparison of the research findings with other studies of domestic and international tanker transport.