THE DEVELOPMENT OF HAZARDOUS GOODS TRANSPORTATION TELEMATICS IN FINLAND

This paper gives an overview on the development efforts concerning hazardous goods transportation telematics in Finland. A preliminary study was made in the Nordic countries considering intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in the transportation of hazardous goods and possible co-operation between countries in this issue. In Finland an Internet based geographic information system (GIS) has been developed to manage the environmental risks of hazardous goods transportation. A prototype has been tested and it has proven to be worthwhile. Also a research project about the data exchange in hazardous goods transportation has been done in Finland. The objective was to find out especially the opinions and needs of enterprises considering data exchange and the possible monitoring system. In these projects it has clearly been seen that it is essential to get companies to join the system, because some of the necessary information can only be received from the companies. Since the sending of transport data into the monitoring system does not benefit companies in any way, the system should have features which would be useful to them. These could include a possibility to have better control of the logistic chain by monitoring the position and the status of transport unit. The management of hazardous goods will be one of the main research areas in the national ITS research programme in Finland. So far there has been no decision about the development and implementation of the monitoring system. With the development of technology and companies' ITS, the conditions and probability for the system are constantly improving.