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Radioactive materials have many beneficial uses, including medical, industrial, agricultural and power generation. First, they must be transported — by road, rail, air, and by water at sea and on inland waterways — between mining sites, refining and production facilities, through to the final customers.
Some radioactive material needs to take the shortest, fastest route, for example in the case of medical radiopharmaceutical products that have a very short half-life (the time taken for half the material to decay and become unusable).
A robust international regulatory framework for the safe transport of radioactive material has been in place for more than six decades. The latest set of requirements for this international framework are established in the
IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (SSR-6, Rev. 2). This in turn is incorporated into modal regulations that apply to international transport of dangerous goods by air and sea, and into regional agreements that cover road and rail for radioactive material (Class 7 of the
United Nations Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods: Model Regulations).
Despite there being a well established international regulatory framework and a strong safety record, the problems related to denials of and delays in the international shipment of radioactive material are continuously faced by the various stakeholders.
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