PHMSA identifies the hazardous materials that have been linked to the most serious consequences in terms of deaths and major injuries relative to exposure. The Office of Hazardous Materials Safety (OHMS) periodically reviews the incident data to explore, develop and refine methodologies that illustrate which hazardous materials are most likely to be involved in death and major injury relative to how much is transported and how far they are transported. The specific methodology presented here has limitations, but it provides one potential indicator for identifying these “top consequence” hazardous materials.
This indicator is called the “normalized hazard rating,” and is calculated in a few steps.