Development of the IAEA Safety Guide 'Format and Content of the Package Design Safety Report (PDSR) for the Transport of Radioactive Material'

Since 2005, several European countries coordinated by EACA have been developing a guide on contents and structure of the documentation demonstrating the compliance with the regulations for packages for the transport of radioactive material (package design safety report, PDSR). This guide has been periodically improved, considering feedback from designers and authorities. Taking into account the successful application of this guide in Europe, in 2013 the IAEA decided to establish a similar guide as an IAEA document for promotion of worldwide use. The development of this IAEA guide started from the latest version of the European PDSR guide. In 2016/2017 during a 120 days comment period comments on the draft were received from member states. These have been incorporated into the draft in a series of meetings in 2017. In another meeting in December 2018 the draft has been updated to be in line with the latest revision of SSR-6. In this process the draft has been improved significantly, regarding structure as well as implementation of a graded approach depending on the package type, and significantly clarified. The paper points to the major considerations in developing the guide and important improvements over the last version of the European PDSR guide.