The European Commission (DG MOVE) and the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA), in collaboration with all interested organisations, started the development of a harmonised technical framework for the Transport of Dangerous Goods (TDG), applicable to Roads, Railways and Inland waterways.
With the general objective of leveling the approach to risk-based decision-making and to facilitate the use of risk estimation technics, the European Commission (DG MOVE) and ERA, in collaboration with all interested organisations, started the development of a harmonised technical framework for the Transport of Dangerous Goods (TDG), applicable to Roads, Railways and Inland waterways. This initiative is called the TDG Roadmap and entails a two phase approach.
The first phase of the TDG Roadmap is now complete and a series of guides is made publically accessible to all interested users, for voluntary use.
ERA, with the help of the Expert Users and Development Group (EUDG), is also coordinating a series of activities for facilitating the use of this framework. These activities form the second phase of the TDG Roadmap.
For any questions relating to this activity please contact us via Inland-TDG
era [dot] europa [dot] eu (email).
The framework is natively embedding a continual improvement process implemented by the Expert Users and Development Group (EUDG) under the supervision of DG Move and the European Union Agency for Railways.
This process aims at updating the framework itself and the reference material taking into account scientific and technical progress.
The reference materials is composed with various technical documents and reference data. It aims at assisting users in the implementation of the framework.
Reference materials are suggestions to users of the framework who remain fully responsible for its correct implementation.
When relevant material is missing or not relevant for a specific user case, the users of the framework are invited to use their own relevant information/data and, when possible, to further improve the public reference material through the continual improvement process of the framework.
A harmonised approach to TDG scenarios is proposed for implementing the framework guides. EUDG members continuously develop this material.
When a relevant scenario is not available for a given user case, the user is invited to develop the relevant TDG scenario(s) and, if possible, to share it with EUDG members. Where relevant, EUDG members will use these inputs for developing further the list of harmonised TDG scenarios that will be made available to the framework users
A harmonised approach to the estimation of the TDG scenarios frequencies is proposed for implementing the framework guides. It is based on several types of transport statistics that are continuously developed by EUDG members.
When a relevant statistic is not available for a given user case, the user is invited to propose relevant inputs to EUDG members. Where necessary, EUDG members will use these inputs for developing further the reference transport statistics that will be made available to the framework users
The development of the Inland-TDG risk management framework is based on the following (non-exhaustive) list of reference documents.
Access to the list of Reference documents
Framework users are invited to draw the attention of the EUDG members to missing documents that may be relevant for the framework. Where relevant, EUDG members will supplement the list of reference documents that are indicated to the framework users
As a support to the implementation of the guides some templates and tools are made available, in particular to set default parameters for risk estimations and describe risk situations as well as decision-making cases.
Volunteer users of the framework are kindly invited to submit examples of use of the Inland TDG risk Management Framework.
After a methodological review of the good practice of the framework by the EUDG members, the user case examples are published with the only objective to facilitate the understanding of the guides for users.
Disclaimer:
The results or statements that might be included in the published examples are the sole responsibility of their authors. They do not represent an opinion or a validation of the examples by the EUDG members.
The user case examples do not represent the opinion neither constitute any formal commitment on behalf of the European Commission or the European Union Agency for Railways.
As a support to the implementation of the guides a draft list of relevant parameters for implementing the framework is made available for information.
In 2018 the Agency performed a light impact assessment of the so-called ‘Risk Management Platform’ which would aim at assisting the users in the implementation of the framework. If resources are allocated for its development, the platform may take the form of a web application with cloud computing service.