Development of Transport Documents for Dangerous Goods

In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 5.4 of the UN Model Regulations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods and similar chapters of the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code (IMDG Code), the Regulations of the Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR), the Regulations of the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (ADN), the Dangerous Goods Regulations (Annex 2 of the Agreement concerning International Goods Transport by Rail, the ICAO Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air (ICAO TI), and a number of other international and national regulations, a shipper offering dangerous goods for transport must provide the carrier with relevant information regarding these goods.

Information contained in the transport documentation may be transferred in the transport document for the dangerous goods or, upon agreement with the carrier, by electronic data processing (EDP) or electronic data interchange (EDI) methods. Regardless of the form in which the information on dangerous goods is presented, all data contained therein must be absolutely accurate and go in the certain order established by the Rules. Although the Rules permit the presentation of information on various dangerous goods, as well as on dangerous and non-dangerous goods, in a single transport document, the developer of the transport documentation must clearly understand the compatibility and separation of both the dangerous goods themselves and the dangerous and non-dangerous goods.

The carrier is obliged to retain a copy of the transport document for dangerous goods, as well as additional documentation and information stipulated by the Rules, for at least three months. When documents are stored on electronic media or in a computer system, the carrier must be able to reproduce them in printed form.

Certain modes of transport impose additional (industry-specific) requirements on transport documentation. This must be taken into account not only when issuing a transport document for the carriage of dangerous goods by a single mode of transport, but also, and especially importantly, for multimodal transport.

The International Dangerous Goods and Containers Association (IDGCA) and its subsidiaries, including the International Staff Training Center (ISTC), for a long time have been developing transport documents in the form of a “Multimodal Transport Declaration”, the form of which is presented in Fig. 5.4.1 of the UN Model Regulations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods and other regulations based on the Model Regulations. The quality of the documents development has never raised any complaints or comments from customers.