Analysis of the Activities of Fire Protection Units in Response to a Traffic Accident with a Cyclohexylamine Leak Using Petri Nets and Markov Chains

Chemical emergencies in transport are rare but operationally demanding. This study presents a framework that converts the timeline of a real intervention involving a cyclohexylamine leak after a tanker truck overturned into a Petri net and subsequently into an absorbing Markov model. This provides decision-oriented indicators for the intervention phases and enables what-if analysis. Application to a case study shows that the capacity of the decontamination line has a significant impact on the duration of the incident resolution, while introducing a small probability of returning from technical measures to decontamination slightly prolongs the course while leaving the certainty of successful completion unchanged. Mapping between activities, Petri net locations, and aggregated states promotes transparency and the repeatability of procedures and highlights activities with a high number of repeat visits. The outputs are useful for decision making related to personnel and material resources, post-review analyses, and exercise planning. The limitations lie in calibration to a single incident, the partial use of expertly estimated parameters, and the approximate conversion of “steps” to time. Future work will focus on multiple cases, finer-grained time handling, and explicit capacity modelling.