Numerous companies are located in the Netherlands where hazardous materials are produced, processed and transported. Transport across the company sites is mostly done by diesel-powered vehicles. As part of the energy transition, these vehicles are increasingly being replaced by "sustainable" alternatives, such as electrically powered vehicles or vehicles using natural gas/LNG or hydrogen as fuel. These other fuels and propulsion systems may also potentially pose "new" safety risks.

Because the impact of incidents at companies where large quantities of hazardous materials are handled (BRZO companies) can be large, a chemical cluster with a number of (petro)chemical industries, including the VNCI asked the National Institute of Public Safety (formerly the Institute of Physical Safety) to investigate the safety risks of transport with "alternatively powered vehicles" (so-called AAVs) over such industrial sites.

Phase 1 and 2 have been completed, see:

NIPV Report - Safety risks AAVs on chemical clusters - exploration (phase 1)

NIPV Report - Safety of alternatively powered vehicles at chemical sites - Incident scenarios (phase 2)

In phase 3, incident scenarios and possible control measures will be tested in practice. The research is supervised by experts from the (petro)chemical industry, Safety Region and Safety Delta Netherlands.