وقایعی در اندازه بحران: یک ابزار جدید برای تخصیص منابع مدیریت بحران؟

To accommodate future growth and economic development, various autonomous developments take place simultaneously in the Netherlands. On one hand, regional economical development focuses on spatial planning, characterized by concepts such as compact cities, transportation corridors and multifunctional use of limited space, including underground infrastructure. On the other hand, developments in the transportation area are addressed from an European perspective, including Trans European networks, High Speed lines, dedicated freight lines, open railway markets, innovative technology and interoperability requirements. In the Netherlands, both developments have become inseparably interwoven because they have to be realised in already densely inhabited and industrialised areas. Safety consequences are involved which may manifest themselves as major events due to inherent deficiencies in the systems. The nature and extent of potential events as well as the probabilistic nature of risk decision making do not take into account specific needs and requirements of the rescue and emergency management sector. New instruments are developed for this sector to cope with requirements of a transition towards a regional crisis and emergency management force with explicit performance standards. To this purpose, a Critical Size Event for contingency planning and crisis management is introduced, similar to the concept of a Maximum Credible Accident in the process industry. A broad-brush outline of the instrument is given and the potential for further development of the concept is discussed.

In the Netherlands, debates on urban and spatial development focus on regional development, characterized by the name of the region, such as the ‘Groene Hart’, ‘Noord Brabant’ and ‘Gelderse vallei’ (PZH, 1995). The debate deals with contradictions between a compact city concept, urbanization, transport corridors, multifunctional use of limited space and requirements of economical development. In the transportation arena, attention is paid to the Netherlands as a Distributing Country, intensified use of transportation corridors with high percentages of hazardous material, mainports, hubs and spokes and connections to international transportation networks and markets. The transportation sector foresees major changes in transportation volumes, a tight coupling of modes into corridors with high-density transportation of passengers and goods, a permanent use as a consequence of the 24-h economy. These developments are also characterized by the use of underground infrastructure, new traffic control systems, new logistic concepts and the large-scale implementation of information technology and telematics. A major role is allocated to the railways, leading to large-scale infrastructure projects and international network links such as the ‘Betuweroute’ dedicated cargo line and the Amsterdam–Antwerp ‘High Speed South’ line for passenger transport. Encompassing documents on a national policy making level structure the decision making and act as guidelines for implementation of spatial planning and transportation initiatives (Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordering en Milieu (VROM), 2001 and Ministerie van Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (BZK), 2000). Spatial planning, regional development and transportation systems have become inseparably interwoven. However, it is a question whether the spatial planning debate has sufficient knowledge of the developments, which are occurring in the transportation industry. Relatively little attention is paid to developments in transportation, which seem to possess its own international context and decision-making arena. Both arenas are hardly related to each other (Baggen, 2001). Several limitations and weaknesses are discussed to ensure that these developments do not result in unforeseen safety problems in practice, exceeding social unacceptable risk levels and available resources of local and regional crisis management organisations.

The characteristics of both urban, spatial planning and transportation sectors are changing with respect to scale, intensity and multi-functionality. National and international policy making stimulates the development of economic regions, merging these autonomous sectors into a compact and interwoven concept. This concept may reveal unforeseen catastrophic effects during operational practice since safety consequences are not yet analyzed in a conceptual design phase. Practical experiences demonstrate that rescue and emergency characteristics do not harmonize with primary characteristics of these developments. First indications—recently expressed by a small series of major accidents—reveal characteristics of ‘normal accidents’ as earlier described by Perrow. Risk assessment at a regional level enters the area of low-probability/high-consequences with an inherent debate on credibility and cost-effectiveness of their mitigation. Since no instruments are yet available for pro-action and prevention, risk mitigation strategies have to rely on preparation, repression and aftercare. These strategies have consequences for the rescue and emergency community, which itself is in a phase of re-engineering and reorganization. In abandoning the cold warfare concept, new tasks are allocated and a scaling up to a regional level is taking place in the rescue and emergency sector, highlighting specific needs and additional requirements for risk decision making and handling emergencies. The development of a specific instrument—the Critical Size Event—is in its first phases, emerging from operational needs and practical experiences in the Netherlands. Preliminary findings indicate a favourable acceptance by operational services. It is interesting to note that such a Critical Size Event is the product of a bottom-up and pragmatic development. Rather than starting from a scientific point of view, giving a treatise on the principles of risk assessment or expanding existing concepts, a pragmatic approach was initiated, based on operational experiences and field expertise. Unlike the Anglo-Saxon world, the Netherlands has no academic tradition in fire engineering or rescue and emergency management. Despite these limitations, an interesting broadening of the risk decision-making spectrum has emerged which seems to be in accordance with scientific risk notions and concepts, which are previously applied in other industrial sectors. A ‘countervailing of powers’ may be established with stakeholders in transport and the environment, which already have developed their own probabilistic, external risk assessment approaches and standards for risk decision making and assessment. Although a Critical Size Event may seem a typical Dutch decision-making tool for specific operational situations, the instrument may have a wider applicability. Critical Size Events may be developed as a design tool for major transport and underground infrastructure, urban and spatial planning projects. They may reinforce the transparency in the interference between autonomous developments within a region, adding to an increased predictability of low-frequency events. They may supply actors and stakeholders operating from a rescue and emergency management point of view with an adequate risk decision-making tool and balanced allocation of required resources. Moreover, the instrument may have a more generic applicability outside the Netherlands, since conceptual changes in urban development, spatial planning and the transportation sector are not limited to the Netherlands.