Guide for the preparation of a safety report

The European Union's (EU) Standing Working Group on the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material forwarded the Technical Guide "Package Design Safety Reports for the Transport of Radioactive Material” (so called European PDSR Guide) for the first time to the EU member states in August 2008 for use by the industry and authorities in Europe. The current version is Issue 3 of January 2015.

The Guide serves to assist in the preparation of the so-called package design safety report to provide evidence that the package design for the transport of radioactive material be in compliance with the legal provisions.

• For package designs requiring competent authority approval, the documentary evidence of compliance with the provisions is the basis for application for design approval.
• For packages not requiring competent authority approval, the consignor must be capable of presenting documentary evidence that the design is in compliance with all applicable provisions.

The Technical Guide recommends that for these designs the same documentary evidence has to be provided as to packages requiring competent authority approval. The extent and technical contents need to be adapted correspondingly, in order to prove compliance with the legal provisions.

Structure of the Guide

Chapter 0 of the Guide contains requirements that need to be taken into account in the documents mentioned in chapters 1 and 2.

Chapters 1 and 2 contain the general structure and contents of parts 1 and 2 of a package design safety report applicable to all package designs.

Furthermore, the Guide contains a matrix of the paragraphs/numbers of the Regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and of the provisions of the Annexes to the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (as an example of the provisions for the different modes of transport) applicable to each package type.

The Annexes contain more information relating to the respective package type in terms of extent and contents of the respective package design safety report.

Additional Document

In the document "Comparison of paragraphs of the IAEA Regulations (SSR-6) and the provisions of the different modes of transport" the corresponding paragraphs of the Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (SSR-6) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the provisions of the different modes of transport (road, rail, inland waterways, sea and air) are compared. It illustrated the implementation of the Regulations for the safe transport of radioactive material into the legally binding Modal Regulations. In addition to the matrix of the Technical Guide, the table of the corresponding paragraphs provides also further guidance and support for the preparation of a safety report.