Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

Fault tree analysis using in the land transport

of hazardous chemicals
Y. Luo

Y. Cao

X. Mu

Transportation Management College, Dalian Maritime University, China, 116026

email: Renmeng.2008.8.8@163.com, 105830819@qq.com, dlmussx@126.com
subm. 10th September 2013

approv. after rev. 15th November 2013

Abstract
In order to reduce the transportation accident of hazardous chemicals, methods of risk analysis and control of
land transport of hazardous chemicals based on fault tree are proposed. On the basis of the analysis of
hazardous chemicals land transport systems, hazardous chemicals land transport fault tree is constructed.
Through the calculation of the basic events of the fault tree structure importance, there is a clearly main
factor that may cause traffic accidents of hazardous chemicals. At the same time, through the analysis of the
likely outcome of the hazardous chemicals traffic accident, risk index of the incident is concluded with the
help of consequences severity index and possibility index, and a number of control measures are given.
Keywords land transport of hazardous chemicals, fault tree, risk analysis, control measures

1. Introduction
According to article 3 of Regulations on safety management of hazardous chemicals,
hazardous chemicals with toxicity, corrosion, explosion, combustion, the combustion properties is
highly toxic chemicals and other chemicals which has a harm to human body, facilities and
environment [1]. Hazardous chemicals in the production, transport, use, storage and recovery
process is easy to cause casualties and property damage, it needs special protection. With the
rapid development of economy, our country in energy, raw materials and other hazardous
chemicals transportation is more and more, the amount of hazardous chemicals transportation
accident also continues to rise.
On October 21, 2008, liquefied petroleum gas in a liquefied petroleum gas tank car in Qing
yang area of Gansu province leaked, caught a fire and exploded. Five people were killed, 11
houses were on fire burned, and railway Baoji-Chengdu line was interrupted for nearly 12 hours.
On June 29, 2012, a truck collided with an oil tanker in Guangzhou Expressway, oil spill
spread to container yard and surrounding buildings, fired, caused 20 deaths, 29 people were
injured.
Transportation accidents of hazardous chemicals not only seriously endanger people's safety
of life and property, but also pollute the environment, causing serious social impact. Therefore,
risk control is more important for the transport of hazardous chemicals, risk control measures
should be more rigorous, meticulous, and cautious, bringing the possibility and extent of harm of
potential accidents to a minimum.

- 95 -

Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

2. Risk assessment model and analysis of land transport of hazardous chemicals

In this paper, the risk assessment for the transport of hazardous chemicals is through the
analysis of fault tree.
Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a mean of mapping analysis which identifies the causal relation
and logic relation among various factors associated with disasters from the results to reason. It
begins with the specific accident or failure (top event), layer upon layer, analyzing the reasons
until find out the main causes of the accident which are the fault tree bottom events. These are
also known as basic events [2]. The causality is connected by different logic gates, such that the
resulting image looks like an inverted tree. That is why we call it fault tree analysis method. Fault
tree analysis procedure is shown in Figure 1.
2.1. Drawing of fault tree in land transportation of hazardous chemicals
The fault tree is drawn with the two principles. Firstly, only consider the main factors in the
fault tree analysis, a secondary factor is ignored. Two is the principle of measuring event, should
try to choose easy to observe events as the basic and intermediate events in fault trees.
The cause of traffic accidents of hazardous chemicals is varied. According to that the actual
situation and fault tree drawing principle, the initial cause of traffic accidents of hazardous
chemicals can be roughly divided into two categories. One is the internal reason of the system; the
other is caused by the external environment. System internal causes include employees, facilities,
management defects, etc. The external environment is mainly due to bad weather and road
conditions. Various reasons are likely to lead to hazardous chemicals transportation traffic
accident.
Through the analysis, make the traffic accidents of hazardous chemicals land transport fault
tree as is shown in Figure 2.
2.2. Qualitative analysis of land transportation of hazardous chemicals fault tree
The fault tree shows, roughly 26 initial causes lead to the incident, with the X1, X2,..., X26 said.
These reasons are hidden troubles which may cause the accident.
Familiar with
the system

System data
collecting

Determining the
top event

Investigation of
accidents

Drawing
accident tree

qualitative
analysis

Investigating the
cause of accidents

quantitative
analysis

Setting up
safety measures

Fig. 1 - Fault tree analysis program

- 96 -

Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

accident
happens

+
external
factors
A2

road traffic A6bad

weather

A6

X1

+
internal
factor
road
terrain condition

A1
+

A3
+

driver

handling
personnel

riding
personnel

A8

A9

X14

poor
system of
safety
awareness supervision
A12
X2
+

safety
system difficulty of
defects
of tank accessories defect supervision
A13
A15
A
14
X7
+
+
+

engine
failure

fire
equipm
ent

X17

take the
ultra-high irrelevant
overweight personnel

tire
fault

X11

X10

A5

A11

X22

management
defects

facilities

A10

not timely technical rough

free
rescue in question handling
parking
danger
A13
X6
X5 No
X4
absent
+
reinforce
without
ment
leave
device
hog
fatigue
driving overtak
ing
X13
X9

vehicle
fault

time
X12

X8

equipment
and
facilities
A4
+

employee

A7

X3

steering
failure

X18

the test
instrume
nt failure

X16
X23

X15

not
fixed
line
X21 low
X19
informa
personn tization
el access X24

vehicle
access

static
electricity X20
elimination

X26

outage
random

X25

Fig. 2 - Land transport of hazardous chemicals fault tree

Simplifying fault tree with Boolean algebra method [3]:

= 1 + 2
= (3 + 4 + 5 ) + (6 + 1 )
= (7 + 8 + 9 ) + (10 + 11 ) + 2 12 + (3 + 4 + 5 ) + 1
= 4 (9 + 13 ) + (5 + 10 + 14 ) + (6 + 11 + 15 ) + (16 + 17 + 22 )
+ (7 + 18 + 23 + 25 ) + 2 (19 + 20 + 21 + 24 + 26 )
+ (3 + 8 + 12 ) + 1
Get a total of 24 groups of minimal cut sets:
{X4, X9}, {X4, X13}, {X5}, {X10}, {X14}, {X6}, {X11}, {X15}, {X16}, {X17}, {X22}, {X7}, {X18},
{X23}, {X25}, {X2, X19}, {X2, X20}, {X2, X21}, {X2, X24}, {X2, X26}, {X3}, {X8}, {X12}, {X1}.
Structure importance reflects the importance of basic events in the fault tree. That is the
degree of influence. It is apt to analysis the influence of basic event to top event occurrence. It is
convenient to develop security measures according to the order of priority, allowing the system to
achieve the economic, safe, effective purpose. By fault tree theory knowledge, the use of
minimum cut set arrangement structure important degree formula is [4]:
- 97 -

Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

() =

1
2 1

where:
()

= approximate discriminant value of structure important coefficient of the basic

events Xi
= the minimum cut set of basic events Xi belongs to Kj

= the number of basic events in which basic events Xi included the minimum cut
sets.
The structure importance of basic events concluded by this formula is as shown in Table 1.
Compared to other basic events, safety awareness is more important by the calculation results
of the structure importance.
Therefore, during the accident prevention, it is necessary to improve safety awareness
attention. It can also be seen from the fault tree, the driver is also a very important reason to take
no quick and effective measures in a timely manner after founding in danger. From the analysis
can be seen, the fault tree has 24 sets of minimal cut sets, which lead to the causes of traffic
accidents in 24 ways, the possibility of traffic accidents is very large.
3. Application and improvement
The structure importance of basic events is to some extent reflects the importance of every
basic event, not considering the occurrence probability of each event, it is not correct to reflect the
actual situation of each basic event.
The quantitative analysis need to know the probability of each basic event. In real life it is
difficult to obtain probability of each basic event of fault tree in place because of the restriction of
traffic accident statistics and messy, also cannot get the probability of each basic event
importance.
Therefore, the author thinks, two methods are not completely made risk analysis of land
transport of hazardous chemicals.
Based on this, the author puts forward a kind of risk analysis on the basis of possible accidents
in hazardous chemicals land transportation.
Figure 3 is diagram for hazardous chemicals land transport result might happen in the traffic
accident.
According to the "approach to road traffic accidents" provisions of article sixth issued by the
State Council, grade division standard of traffic accidents is as shown in Table 2, and gives
different severity index according to the consequences of the accident [5].
Tab. 1 - Structure importance of basic events

- 98 -

Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

Collided Y
with
another
car?

Leak
?

The Y
fire?
N

Accident 1
Accident 2
Accident 3

Accident 4

traffic
accident ?

Vehicle, tank problems, recovery in time after

found
N

Accident 5

Fig. 3 - Diagram for hazardous chemicals land transport result

Tab. 2 - Classification of accident level

Considering the frequency of traffic accidents, the possibility of traffic accidents briefly
described as follows: rare, less, occasionally, sometimes occur, often happen. And given
possibility index are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. According to the actual knowledge in real life, level of
traffic accidents is also given different possibilities index with slight accidents 5, ordinary
accidents 3, and major accidents 2, serious accidents 1. Finally, according to the traffic accident
severity index of hazardous chemicals and possibilities index, we can evaluate the risk index.
Risk index = Severity index Possibilities index
Tab. 3 - Account table of risk

- 99 -

Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

It can be seen from Table 3 that the risk index of incident 2, 3, 4 is high, although the severity
index of the three accidents is not the highest, the risk is very big because of the higher
probability index. This risk should be priority strictly controlled. Since most of the accidents in
the transportation of hazardous chemicals are caused by traffic accidents, improving traffic safety
level is very important to prevent such accidents. While most reason of the tank leakage and
traffic accident is caused by people's unsafe behaviors and objects insecurity state.
Therefore, the control of human behavior and the state will be the core of risk control. Such
conclusions can also be seen from the modern theory of accident causal chain which was
proposed by Bird and Loftus [6] (Figure 4).
4. Risk control mode of hazardous chemicals land transport
Through analysis of fault tree and the possible results of hazardous chemicals land
transportation, the structure importance of the basic event and risk index is determined,
centralized control mode is put forward; make the life and property losses to a minimum.
4.1. Improve safety awareness, strengthen safety management [7]
Hazardous chemicals accidents occur frequently; we should attach great importance to arouse
the transport of hazardous chemicals safety management, to urge the hazardous chemicals
transportation enterprises to implement the main responsibility for production safety, to
strengthen staff management education, to improve driver safety awareness and operated strictly
by the driving regulations.
4.2. Pay attention to use of science and technology in land transport of hazardous chemicals
Constructing hazardous chemicals transportation information platform, improve the safety
monitoring system of land transport of hazardous chemicals based on GIS/RFID technology
gradually. According to the risk of the transport of goods, make full use of information
technology to enhance the level of safety monitoring and supervision of transportation of
hazardous chemicals.

Management fault

Personal reasons

Working conditions

Unsafe behavior

Unsafe conditions

Accident

Casualties

Fig. 4 - The modern theory of accident causal chain

- 100 -

Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

4.3. Enhance the technological level of employees

Land transport of hazardous chemicals industry is a special industry, people who are engaged
in land transportation of hazardous chemicals must grasp the professional knowledge and skills of
the transport of hazardous chemicals.
Firstly, people should strengthen safety education for drivers and escorts. The driver should
not only have a qualification certificate but a rigorous pre-training and safety education and the
implementation of the security post responsibility system.
Escorts should dutifully, not free to take unrelated persons, cannot be absent from duty, cannot
instruct the driver to free parking.
Whats more, handling personnel and maintenance personnel of the vehicle cannot be ignored.
It is necessary to grasp the key factors of a good man to ensure the safety of land transport of
hazardous chemicals.
4.4. Develop contingency plans to improve the ability of on-site disposal
Plans for handling of hazardous chemicals transportation vehicle accidents are very helpful.
On the one hand, transportation enterprise establishes detailed work plan before driving,
drivers and escorts can correctly and effectively deal with accident when meet with an emergency
situation.
On the other hand, the relevant government departments should establish public security, fire,
medical uniform emergency plan, which has rapid response of emergency rescue mechanism. In
addition, the relevant departments should also handle of violations of the transport vehicle timely
and effective; minimize the damage consequences of the accident; avoid blindly rescue and
prevent the secondary accidents and environmental pollution.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, through the analysis of the fault tree of hazardous chemicals land transportation,
concluded that the poor safety awareness is the main cause of the accident, and to strengthen the
importance of the safety consciousness in hazardous chemicals transport process. Through the
calculation of the minimum cut sets and structure importance degree of the basic events, the
influence factors ranking for the transport of hazardous chemicals is given. And through the risk
analysis, proposed the method of hazardous chemicals transportation risk control, ensure the
safety of the transportation of hazardous chemicals as far as possible.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by Program for Liaoning Innovative Research Team in University, so
we express our deep gratitude for this.
References
1. Jin Y., Yu B., Zheng J. and Zhang X.: Risk Assessment and Control of Bulk Chemical Tanker Transport
Based on Event-tree [J]. Navigation of China,2011(3) 8789.
2. Sun M. and Wu Z.: Statistic Analysis and Countermeasure Study on 200 Road Transportation Accidents
of Dangerous chemicals [J]. Journal of Safety Science and Technology, 2006(4)48.
3. Li X., Shen X., Xie P. and Xie C.: Statistic Analysis on Road HAZMAT Transportation Accidents by the
tank truck [J]. Journal of Safety Science and Technology, 2012(11) 4447.

- 101 -

Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2013 Special Issue

4. Feng S., Niu S., Shi F. and Zheng Y.: Traffic Safety Evaluation Method for Highway Section Based on
Fault Tree [J]. Journal of Chongqing Jiaotong University (Natural Science), 2013(2) 8790.
5. Guo M.: Application of Fault Tree in HSE Risk Identification and Assessment [J]. Petrochemical Safety
Technology, 2006(2) 810.
6. Bird F. E.. and O'Shell H. E. (1973). The Principles of Loss Control Management. Selected Readings in
Safety. Widner. Joanne T.. ed. Macom, GA: Academy Press.
7. Bu Q. and Tong X.: Study on Safety in Road Transportation of Dangerous Chemicals[J].Industrial Safety
and Environmental Protection, 2012(4)90-92.

- 102 -

Copyright of Advances in Transportation Studies is the property of Advances in

Transportation Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or
posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users
may print, download, or email articles for individual use.