Sub‑Optimal Routing and Security Planning for Hazmat Trains

$100,000–$5,000,000+ over multi‑year periods in avoidable excess risk exposure, higher insurance and self‑insured retention levels, sub‑optimal security plans requiring extra mitigation spend, and costly community‑relations concessions when incidents or near‑misses occur on routes that could have been de‑risked. • $100K-$600K annually from intermodal rerouting inefficiencies, doubled handling costs, and modal switching delays • $100K–$500K annually in emergency response delays, potential incidents due to communication failures, and regulatory compliance costs for routes with inadequate emergency communication infrastructure

Customer Account Manager responds reactively to community concerns and incident reports; uses incident summaries without access to root-cause route risk data • Dispatcher uses memory, prior experience, radio coordination with crews; consults printed route maps; makes ad-hoc decisions based on incomplete data • Email threads with facility teams, manual checklist in Word, WhatsApp group messages with yard contacts for real-time route confirmations