Lessons learned from analysis of events involving the transport of radioactive materials in France between 2012 and 2015

Each year in France, almost one million packages of radioactive materials for civilian use are transported by road, railway, sea and air. Approximately one hundred events are declared annually to the French nuclear safety authority by the consignors or the carriers of these packages.These events are analysed by the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) and the lessons learned from this analysis are given public in reports published every two years. It includes an overall analysis of the transport-related events taking into account the number ofevents, the distribution by sector of activity, means of transport and type of package involved and a presentation of the main types of events occurred.The aim of this analysis is to highlight trends compared with previous years, to check whether the actions put in place to prevent the recurrence of events declared in the past are relevant and to identify issues that require additional vigilance and preventive actions by the companies involved (package designer, consigner or carrier), including operations conditions and safety management aspects. In addition, the feedback associated to these events is taken into account by IRSN in its assessment.The last two reports published by IRSN (2012-2013 and 2014-2015 periods) show that the number of vents that have had potential radiological consequences or which have resulted in a degradation of the packaging components important to safety has reduced since the beginning of the century. Moreover, the decrease in the number of events related to package damages resulting from impacts during handling operations, to inappropriate package closure and to the presence of unexpected organic materials within the cavity, seem to confirm that the corrective actions implemented in recent years had a positive impact.Nevertheless, axes of improvement have been identified concerning the detection and the report of the events in the small-scale nuclear sector, the presence of contamination on the surface of some packages or transport vehicles as well as the tie-down and the preparation of the packages.