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THE EXPERTS’ EXPERTS MULTIMODAL • THE JOINT MEETING’S AUTUMN 2020 SESSION HEARD FROM SEVERAL WORKING GROUPS LOOKING INTO SPECIFIC TECHNICAL ISSUES, WITH SOME CHANGES ADOPTED
THE AUTUMN SESSION of the Joint Meeting of the RID Committee of Experts and the Working Party on the Transport of Dangerous Goods of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (WP15) took place between 10 and 18 September 2020, with a longer meeting to take account of the loss of the spring session due to Covid-19 restrictions. The decisions that were due to be made at the spring session and were held over to the autumn meeting were therefore too late for inclusion in the 2021 texts of RID, ADR and ADN, the regulations that govern the transport of dangerous goods by rail, road and inland waterway, respectively, and will have to wait until 2023. The meeting was chaired by Claude Pfauvadel (France) with Silvia García-Wolfrum (Spain) as vice-chair. It was attended by
representatives of 25 countries as full members and representatives of the European Commission, EU Agency for Railways (ERA) and 18 non-governmental organisations. The first part of this report on the autumn Joint Meeting (HCB December 2020, page 58) concentrated on the discussions of the Working Group on Tanks and the decisions that it made that were approved in plenary. This second part of the report (HCB January 2021, page 48) covered progress made by the Working Group on Standards and a number of papers and proposals on the interpretation of the regulations and for their amendment. This final part of the report looks at the feedback from working groups and relations with other bodies. Before that, the European Industrial Gases Association (EIGA) brought delegates
up to date with the progress being made in the US to facilitate the international transport of approved pressure receptacles to and from Europe. It had been anticipated that the US Department of Transportation (DOT) would instigate a formal approval procedure by mid-2020, though there had been no indication by the time of the Joint Meeting. EIGA promised to continue to work with the US DOT and its US counterpart, the Compressed Gas Association (CGA) and to report back to the Joint Meeting. [Some action did emerge later, as part of a miscellaneous rulemaking by the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Association.] BLEVE WORKING GROUP Spain reported on the 14th session of the informal working group on the reduction of the risk of a boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE), which had taken place in Madrid in October 2019 and had heard presentations from a number of expert bodies. That meeting resolved to present the Joint Meeting with some measures that had identified as offering ways to reduce or prevent the development of a BLEVE event. These were: 1. T he installation of metallic mudguards on vehicles, which have been shown to prevent the propagation of tyre fires to the other areas of a vehicle. 2. T he installation of engine fire suppression systems, to prevent the spread of fire to the cab, which has been shown to present a high risk of a BLEVE. 3. T he installation of safety (pressure relief) valves, which have been shown to prevent a BLEVE in all cases except those where the tank is subjected to a very intense and localised heat source. 4. The introduction of technical devices for general traffic safety, since most accidents involving dangerous goods start as a normal traffic accident. This item specifically included the introduction of advanced emergency braking systems and lane departure warning systems. 5. T he installation of screening between the cab and the tank, to prevent propagation of fire between the two; work is still going on to model such occurrences.
HCB MONTHLY | FEBRUARY 2021
