A new approach has been formulated to consider both cost and population at risk in hazardous material transportation. The approach involves the use of bicriterion path-finding methodology that minimizes the distance traversed and population at risk within a fixed-band width along the path. Examples using US Interstate highway network and population information from the 1980 US census are presented. Preliminary results indicate that the minimum distance path is significantly different from minimum population within a fixed-band width path. In addition, the minimum population paths are sensitive to the width of the band along the path. Finally, the trade-off between cost and risk varies significantly among alternative storage sites. This new approach provides decision makers with an efficient method of generating alternatives that completely describe the best options available. By combining sophisticated algorithms with graphical representation of the network, the methodology allows the trade-offs among noninferior paths to be understood more quickly and more fully.

In the transportation industry, much effort has been devoted to finding the least cost routes for shipping goods from their production sites to the market areas. In addition to cost, the decision maker must also consider the possibility of an incident when transporting hazardous materials. Transporting spent nuclear fuel from reactor sites to repositories is a conspicuous example.