Information Management and Collection for U.S. DOE's Packaging and Transportation Needs in the '90's

The Transportation Assessment and Integration (TRAIN) Project (US DOE 1992) was established to provide a systematic approach to identify the problems and needs that will affect the capability of the United States Department of Energy (US DOE) to provide itself with cost-effective, efficient, and coordinated transportation services during the 1990s. Eight issue areas were identified to be included in the TRAIN Project, with one principal investigator assigned to each. The eight areas are as follows: 1) Packaging and Transportation Needs (PATN) in the 1990s; 2) Institutional and Outreach Programs; 3) Regulatory Impacts on Transportation Management; 4) Traffic and Packaging Operations; 5) Research and Development Requirements; 6) Training Support; 7) Emergency Preparedness Requirements; and 8) US DOE-EM 561 Roles and Responsibilities. This paper focuses on the results of the PATN activity of TRAIN. The objective of PA TN is to prepare the US DOE, in general, and US DOE-EM 561 (Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (EM), Office of Technology Development, Transportation) in particular, to respond to the transportation needs of program elements in the Department. One of the first tasks in evaluating these needs was to formulate the potential for transportation of radioactive materials in the next decade. The US DOE is responsible for a relatively small fraction of the national shipments of radioactive material. Nevertheless, the assessment of its packaging and transportation needs presents a problem of wide scope. Large quantities of material are shipped each year throughout the US DOE establishment as a result of its work in the various field offices, national laboratories, and contractor facilities which carry out its programs.