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State-level accident rates by mode of freight transport have been developed and refined for application to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) environmental mitigation program, which may involve largequantity shipments of hazardous and mixed wastes from DOE facilities. These rates reflect multiyear data for interstate-registered highway carriers, American Association of Railroads member carriers, and coastal and internal waterway barge traffic. Adjustments have been made to account for the share of highway combination-truck traffic actually attributable to interstate-registered carriers and for duplicate or otherwise inaccurate entries in the public-use accident data files used. State-to-state variation in rates is discussed, as is the stability of rates over time. Computed highway rates have been verified with actual carriers of high-and low-level nuclear materials, and the most recent truck accident data have been used, to ensure that the results are of the correct order of magnitude. Study conclusions suggest that DOE use the computed rates for the three modes until (1)improved estimation techniques for highway combination-truck miles by state become available, (2)continued evolution of the railroad industry significantly increases the consolidation of interstate rail traffic onto fewer high-capacity trunk lines, or (3)a large-scale off-site waste shipment campaign is imminent. 1 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Carriers of freight, regardless of commodity or mode of carriage, are subject to the risk of accidents in which cargo may be damaged and people may be killed or injured. The Center for Transportation Research of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has developed a set of state-and waterway-specific "risk factors" aimed at increasing the underst_ading of accident risk involved in the transport of hazardous waste by authorized interstate carriers. The risk factors, which include accident involvements and accident-related fatalities and injuries, have been expressed as rates per unit-shipment distance.

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