SHIPMENTS UNDER SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT : CRITERIA

Permission for special arrangement (SA) is accorded upon ensuring that the shortcomings of the proposed shipment would be off-set by the compensatory measures. In the Regulations for the Safe Transport of radioactive Materials, IAEA Safety Series No. 6 (1961) the Competent Authority was required to take into account the frequency of the shipments and the projected exposure. Subsequent editions require that the special arrangement shall ensure that the overall level of safety in transport is at least equivalent to that if all the applicable requirements of the Regulations had been met. In the 1985 edition of the Regulations, the term \"Multilateral approval\" was used explicitly for such shipments. The concept of SA ensures that a shipment is not prevented for reasons of formalities. It is a boon to the consignor. If claimed as an legal entitlement and used indiscriminately, shipment under SA can be a bane from safety point of view. The dilemma may be solved by making a quantitative assessment of the projected radiological risk arising from the failure of the compensatory measures proposed for the shipment and by establishing a constraint for the dose receivable from SAs in a specified period. Since shipments under special arrangement have not been demonstrated to be particularly unsafe or prone to accidental exposures, there is justification for the continuance of such shipments provided the Competent Authorities issue approvals judiciously. The paper suggests some criteria for the Competent Authority to observe constraints in the issuance of approval certificates for such shipments.