Patent ID: 8190466

Claim:
A method for providing a safe haven for hazardous material transports in response to an event, the method comprising: providing a data store that includes data representative of at least two safe havens with a reduced risk for release of stored hazardous materials, wherein the data includes characteristics of each safe haven, and wherein the characteristics of each safe haven include, (A) a location of the safe haven, (B) a suitability of the safe haven to receive one or more types of hazardous materials, (C) a capacity of the safe haven to store a certain volume of one or more hazardous materials, (D) a capacity of the safe haven to receive a certain size of one or more hazardous material transports, (E) a susceptibility of the safe haven to an event that would result in release of a hazardous material from the safe haven, and (F) an impact of a release of a hazardous material from the safe haven; determining characteristics of at least two hazardous material transports, wherein the characteristics of each hazardous material transport include, (G) a location of the hazardous material transport, (H) a type of hazardous material carried by the hazardous material transport, (I) a volume of hazardous material carried by the hazardous material transport, and (J) a size of the hazardous material transport; and in response to an event, for each hazardous material transport associated with the event, determining a route risk value for each safe haven, wherein said route risk value is based in part on population density and is the lowest risk value among all possible routes from the hazardous material transport to the safe haven; and determining an optimal safe haven among the at least two safe havens based on the determined route risk values, a comparison between characteristics (A) and (G), a comparison between characteristics (B) and (H), a comparison between characteristics (C) and (I), a comparison between characteristics (D) and (J), said susceptibility of the safe haven to an event that would result in release of a hazardous material from the safe haven, said impact of a release of a hazardous material from the safe haven, and a capability of each safe haven to accommodate multiple hazardous material transports.