Assessment of Safety Distances to Be Implemented in Case of Accident In Radioactive Material Transportation

Transport accidents sufficiently severe to involve release or suspected release, or a fault in radiological safety, may occur. Populations and emergency response teams need to be protected to limit the associated dose intake. Thus safety distances need be fixed for a certain number of scenarios representative of possible accidents for the radioactive material transports which are current in France. In order to improve the emergency response organization relative to radioactive material transportation, France has reviewed the guide for drafting the transport emergency response plans of local authorities (PSS-TMR : Dedicated Response Plan - Radioactive Material Transportation). This guide includes instructions to the first teams acting on the site of an accident to set up a safety perimeter matching the hazards. The shape and amplitude of this perimeter depends upon : - the applicable dose criteria, in accordance with the existing regulations, so that the doses delivered to members of the public and response teams do not exceed the authorized thresholds, - the severity of the accident scenarios selected to represent most typical or possible accidents.