Strategic approach to sustainable development of railway transport and optimizing the use of empty cars in organizing transportation of dangerous goods

Abstract Under present-day conditions in the development of the transport market, organizing the transportation of dangerous goods by rail is an urgent task, considering the specific properties of the impact of dangerous goods on technical devices, human health, and the environment. The number of parameters influencing the safety of the transportation process is quite large, therefore, programs for the safe and sustainable development of railway transport must involve protection from all possible sources of danger. The strategy for sustainable development of railway transport should be based on improving regulatory and technical documentation, developing safe technology for eliminating the consequences of emergencies, developing network computer technologies, and improving vehicles and transportation technology. Since the transportation of dangerous goods represents a significant share of the total transportation of goods, including railway transport, the research outlined in the presented work is aimed at solving some aspects of this strategy, which as a result forms a strategic approach to the sustainable development of railway transport when organizing the transportation of dangerous goods. In this paper, considering modern conditions for the development of railway transport, it is proposed to comprehensively implement the assigned task with a new approach by introducing a system of operational control during the transportation and temporary storage of dangerous goods and applying the developed method for the optimal distribution of empty cars among cargo checkpoints in the organization of the transportation process.