Radiation Exposures of Workers and the Public associated with the Transport of Radioactive Material in Germany

Every year approximately 750.000 radioactive material packages (consumer goods excluded) are transported in Germany by all modes on land, water and in the air, i.e. by road, rail, air and sea. The transport involves many types of radioactive materials and radiation sources for applications in medicine, research, industry (e.g. process control, NDT), hydrology, geology and nuclear power production and ranges from very small amounts of radionuclides (some 10.000 Becquerel per package) to very large quantities of radioactivity of some 100.000 TeraBecquerel. The great majority of radioactive material packages, however, contains only relatively small quantities of radiopharmaceuticals, research and industrial sources and other radioactive commodities, while large quantity shipments of radioactive material such as high level radioactive spent nuclear fuel account only for a small proportion of the total national volume of radioactive material shipments. With a total volume of approximately 750.000 radioactive material package shipments per year Germany is - together with France and Belgium - one of the largest shipper countries of radioactive materials in the enlarged European Union [1]. Road and air are the predominant modes of transport. A significant fraction of these radioactive material shipments are transboundary shipments of packaged radioactive materials.