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Monitoring and Intervention for the TRAnsportation of Dangerous Goods

Project description


Improving Risk management
System tracks Europe’s dangerous goods

A new tracking system inspired by that used for air traffic control will help monitor the progress and condition of dangerous goods transported across Europe’s roads.

The system will automatically warn emergency services of potentially dangerous situations, helping them to respond rapidly if an accident or other problem does occur. The more effective emergency teams are in responding to a crisis, the more chance they have of saving lives and preventing damage to property.

European researchers in the Mitra project created the system to provide emergency services with information about the real-time location of radioactive materials, toxic chemicals and hazardous waste being transported in Europe.

Dangerous goods travel across Europe’s roads every day. Currently, only a label identifies the contents of a tanker. Emergency services do not know what they will face when they reach the scene. It may be impossible to approach the tanker, or the label warning of dangerous contents may have been destroyed.

But the Mitra system can ensure that emergency services can respond quickly and efficiently to a crisis if it does occur.

How it works

The Mitra system tracks trucks and trains through an on-board terminal (OBT), made up of telecommunication systems like GSM, SMS and global positioning satellite (GPS) navigation services.

The OBT can relay the location, speed, direction and contents of the vehicle to a central information exchange server.

The server routes the information to a variety of databases, for example those holding road, event and risk assessment information. The road databases contain detailed information about the road system, such as when and where roadworks are underway or the proximity of schools and hospitals. Such databases also provide details about critical infrastructure and other sensitive areas.

An events database might list public holidays, festivals and sporting events. The information is vital to assess the potential impact of a crisis along the vehicle’s route.

Risk assessment

The risk assessment database contains information about how lethal the dangerous goods are, the required security perimeter and propagation models if a spill does occur. A propagation model simply describes how fast and in what manner hazardous materials are likely to spread.

All this information is presented on the user terminal. The terminal details the position of the vehicle on a map, its cargo and the risk the cargo presents.

The terminal also provides alerts when vehicles pass through densely populated areas or if there is a collision. If there is an accident, the system provides vital information for emergency response.

The end-users, emergency services, played an active part in the development of the system.

The French, German and Spanish partners in the project combined expertise in dangerous goods transport, risk prevention and crisis management, satellite positioning and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop the system.

Real-scale emergency

The team delivered a prototype system, including three user monitoring terminals, which were tested at major emergency service centres in France, Germany and Spain.

The tests included field trials and validation. The system was used in real-scale emergency scenarios.

The Mitra system will provide emergency services with real-time information about the position and contents of dangerous vehicles circulating in their area.

It will provide alerts in dangerous situations, and allow emergency services to respond faster and more effectively, potentially saving many lives.

The objective of MITRA is to prototype a new operational system based on regional responsibilities for the monitoring of dangerous goods transportation in Europe. This concept, derived from the Air Traffic Control domain, aims at providing the Civil Security centres with a real-time knowledge of the position and contents of dangerous vehicles circulating in their responsibility area, warning and alert displays in case of dangerous situations, and crisis management information, allowing intervention teams to react immediately in case of an accident, with a maximum of safety. MITRA will entail cooperation between different European actors: Civil Security authorities, research organisations, industrial companies. The active participation of the end-users throughout the whole project duration will ensure adequate requirements capture. They will also be involved in the different project reviews (To+ 4, 7, 16, 21). The project will deliver (To+17) a prototype consisting of 3 User Monitoring Terminals, with the appropriate decision support software modules, together with a Risk-Knowledge platform, containing all information about dangerous goods and propagation models. Deployed in 3 major Civil Security centres (France, Germany and Spain) for field-trials and validation campaign, the system will be submitted to real-scale emergency scenarios. MITRA will contribute to paving the way to the evolution of the European legislation in terms of dangerous goods transportation, through a long-haul dissemination campaign. A Web site (public/private) will be established at To+3, and two major User workshops will be organised at To+4 & To+22. Deploying MITRA in the regional Civil Security Centres in Europe is expected to save many lives among intervention forces and civil populations, improve the efficiency of the operations by at least 10%,.and contribute to the improvement of the interoperability between regional Centres, based on INSPIRE interface requirements.

Fields of science

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

FP6-2003-IST-2
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

STREP - Specific Targeted Research Project

Coordinator

M3 SYSTEMS SAS
EU contribution
€ 203 540,00
Address
RUE DU SOLEIL LEVANT 26
31410 Lavernose Lacasse
France

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Region
Occitanie Midi-Pyrénées Haute-Garonne
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (13)

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Last update: 6 April 2017

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/511361

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