The stakeholders were asked to indicate how useful the following accident information is for their business:

• Crash Root Cause (i.e. driver condition, location constraints)
• Crash Description (i.e. time of crash, number of vehicles)
• Package Design Information (i.e. head thickness, cross-section shape and dimensions)
• Package Damage/Rupture Information (i.e. damage location, damage type, size and depth of damage, wall thickness of damaged cargo tank)
• Injury/Fatality Information (i.e. Number of fatalities due to released lading)
• Accident Costs (i.e. repair costs, clean-up costs)

Manufacturers

The bulk package manufacturers who responded to the survey had varying opinions on what would be most useful; however, they all agreed that the above categories of information would be at least somewhat useful.  Injury and fatality information as well as accident costs were rated the least useful overall.

Carriers

Throughout the survey carriers stressed the importance of including root cause information in such a database.  This desire for a process to evaluate crash root cause was confirmed by 97% of survey respondents indicating that this was either useful or very useful.  Other accident information the majority of carriers said they find useful or very useful include crash description (90% of survey respondents), accident costs (86% of survey respondents), package damage / rupture information (76%) and injury and fatality information (69%).   Package design information was regarded as only somewhat useful by the majority of survey respondents.    One carrier indicated that type of hazardous material, age of vehicles, and equipment manufacturer would also be very useful for their business.

Shippers

Crash root cause, crash description, package design information and package damage/rupture information were identified as the most useful accident information for shippers.  Opinions varied as to whether the other types of accident information were useful or not.  The least useful information was accident costs.   Additionally, shippers believed that contributing causes (not just root cause), on-board video data, years of driver experience and type of roadway/roadway class were all very useful accident information for their business. 

Researchers

The majority of researcher survey respondents were very interested in package design information and package damage or rupture information while less interest was expressed regarding the collection of crash root cause information, crash description, injury and fatality information and accident costs.  Interest was also expressed for the collection of the following types of accident data:

• Accident reconstruction data (i.e. initial speeds, masses, etc.)
• Evacuation information
• Business disruption information
• Number of shipments of the package type
• Type of cargo
• Whether the package was loaded or empty
• Type of maneuver
• How much material was released
• Road and environment condition

Researchers were also asked to rate how relevant several package damage / rupture information descriptors are to their research.  Overall the following information was identified as relevant or very relevant by the majority of respondents:

• Location of damage resulting in the most hazardous materials spilled,
• Location of damage resulting in a hazardous material spilled,
• Location of damage that did not result in a spill,
• Dimensions of the crack, gouge, puncture, or rupture where the most hazardous material spilled, and
• Dimensions of cracks, gouges, punctures, or ruptures where hazardous material spilled.

The following package damage or rupture information was identified as at least somewhat relevant by all but one respondent:

• Location of initial point of impact
• Cause(s) of lading loss
• Dimensions of damage at non-spill locations
• Whether the crack or tear occurred because of damage to the fitting or appurtenance
• Location of damaged fitting
• Type of damaged fitting

Furthermore, the following data are, in general, the least relevant package damage / rupture information:

• Dimensions of dent, crack, puncture, or rupture at initial point of impact
• Shell or head thickness at initial point of impact, the location where the most hazardous material was spilled, locations resulting in a hazardous materials spill, and non-spill damage locations
• Whether the damage occurred near a previous repair
• Whether the previous repair influenced the structural integrity of the tank
• Whether the cargo tank was repaired to specification, repair to non-specification, or scrapped.

Finally, researchers were asked what additional aspects a cargo tank performance database could easily accommodate.  The following is a list of the additional fields that should be considered:

• Accident cause 
• Vehicle speed 
• Type of maneuver being undertaken at the time of the accident 
• Road and environment conditions (dry, wet, ice/snow, visibility)
• Material related consequences 
• Hazardous material type (UN/NA number, proper chemical name, and CAS #) 
• Hazardous material state (gas, liquid, or solid) 
• Load or fill volume 
• Release amount 
• Area affected 
• Timeframe affected 
• Topography or road slope characteristics at the incident site. 
• Type of response including number of units / personnel involved
• Maintenance Information 
• Tank retest dates 
• Repair description 
• Repair location (on tank) 
• Name of inspection facility 
• Name of repair facility
• Driver experience
• Location of accident (latitude and longitude)
• Whether the tank rolled for a significant distance
• Common accident identifier so that the proposed tank performance database can be matched with information on the same accident from other databases