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For the purpose of reducing the incidence of hazardous materials transport accident, eliminating the potential threats and ensuring their safety, aiming at the shortcomings in the process of current hazardous materials transportation management, this paper aims to construct the framework of hazardous materials transportation safety management system under the vehicle-infrastructure connected environment.

The system takes the intelligent connected vehicle as the main supporter, integrating GIS, GPS, eye location, GSM, networks and database technology.

By analyzing the transportation characteristics of hazardous materials, this system consists of five subsystems, which are vehicle and driver management subsystem, dangerous sources and hazardous materials management subsystem, route analysis and optimization subsystem, early warning and emergency rescue management subsystem, and basic information query subsystem.

Hazardous materials transportation safety management system includes omnibearing real-time monitoring, timely updating of system database, real-time generation and optimization of emergency rescue route. The system can reduce the transportation cost and improve the ability of accident prevention and emergency rescue of hazardous materials.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

Notes the recent increase in interstate shipments of hazardous materials, by road, in Malaysia following rapid expansion in the manufacturing sector. Although there has been no major accident involving transportation of hazardous materials, the high rate of road accidents has raised great concerns concerning motor vehicles carrying hazardous goods and petroleum products. Determines the emergency preparedness and response plans of the transportation companies. Data were obtained from management and drivers, and the results revealed that the companies did not have a proper management system of safe transportation, had inadequate training of personnel, and the transport vehicles were not provided with appropriate tools and equipment for emergency response during mishaps. The drivers lacked general awareness and principal knowledge of hazardous material emergency response. Suggests that there is an urgent need to stipulate legal requirements for hazardous material transportation in Malaysia.

Financial assurance rules, also known as financial responsibility or bonding requirements, foster cost internalization by requiring potential polluters to demonstrate the financial resources necessary to compensate for environmental damage that may arise in the future. Accordingly, assurance is an important complement to liability rules, restoration obligations, and other regulatory compliance requirements. The paper reviews the need for assurance, given the prevalence of abandoned environmental obligations, and assesses the implementation of assurance rules in the United States. From the standpoint of both legal effectiveness and economic efficiency, assurance rules can be improved. On the whole, however, cost recovery, deterrence, and enforcement are significantly improved by the presence of existing assurance regulations.

This paper explores how Industry 4.0 facilitates small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets to gain and maintain organizational legitimacy from the government and market and capture value from circular economy (CE) adoption in their businesses.

The authors conduct an in-depth, multistakeholder case study in an SME in China’s hazardous waste recycling and re-utilization industry and apply a qualitative analysis.

The findings show that Industry 4.0 could facilitate SMEs to gain organizational legitimacy through two mechanisms, namely conforming and transcending. Conforming results in baseline-level outcomes to obtain legitimacy while transcending leads to ecosystem value-cocreation, which goes beyond government expectations and reinforces SMEs' legitimacy.

The authors validated the enabling role of Industry 4.0 in CE adoption in SMEs and have generated legitimation processes and strategies that facilitate SMEs to capture value from CE adoption.

A systems perspective of waste management allows an integrated approach not only to the five basic functional elements of waste management itself (generation, reduction, collection, recycling, disposal), but to the problems arising at the interfaces with the management of energy, nature conservation, environmental protection, economic factors like unemployment and productivity, etc. This monograph separately describes present practices and the problems to be solved in each of the functional areas of waste management and at the important interfaces. Strategies for more efficient control are then proposed from a systems perspective. Systematic and objective means of solving problems become possible leading to optimal management and a positive contribution to economic development, not least through resource conservation. India is the particular context within which waste generation and management are discussed. In considering waste disposal techniques, special attention is given to sewage and radioactive wastes.