Dangerous Twin – Exploring Emerging Technologies for Safe and Sustainable Transport of Dangerous Goods
Short description
This project explores how digital twins can enhance information management and safety in the transport of dangerous goods. By analysing both major accidents and minor incidents, the project aims to develop a conceptual framework to optimise learning and risk reduction in the transport sector. Conducted in collaboration between law, informatics, and communication studies, the project seeks to develop innovative solutions for safety and sustainability in the transport industry.
Problem and Purpose
This research concerns the transport of dangerous goods, which poses significant risks for humans, the environment, and society in case of an accident. Despite this severity, existing systems and procedures for incident reporting and analysis remain inadequate.
Previous research has shown that valuable learning opportunities are lost when reporting focuses on major accidents, overlooking minor incidents and near-misses.
The Dangerous Twin project explores how digitalization and emerging technologies can enhance safety and sustainability by enabling more effective learning from all types of incidents.
The aim of the research is to propose a conceptual digital twin that represents the information environment of dangerous-goods transport, and to explore scenarios to improve information sharing, learning, and decision-making across the entire safety chain. The regulatory sandbox serves as a conceptual device for analyzing legal opportunities and constraints.
Realization
The research is situated at the intersection of information systems, law, and communication, with a shared focus on understanding and improving safety in a highly regulated sociotechnical information environment.
This project builds on findings from the previous Learning from Incidents [https://www.gu.se/forskning/incidents] study, where gaps in reporting, terminology, and learning processes were identified.
Through co-creation with stakeholders, including Dangerous Goods Safety Advisers, regulatory authorities, rescue services, and transport companies, the team will develop and iteratively refine a conceptual model for a digital twin.
Methods include qualitative interviews and document analyses. The model will allow exploration of legal, organizational, and technical aspects of incident reporting before new systems or regulations are implemented.
Results
In the transport of dangerous goods, a fully detailed digital twin is neither feasible nor helpful at this stage. A conceptual twin, however, helps make visible the information flows, responsibilities, and regulatory constraints that shape safety. It supports learning and system understanding rather than promising unrealistic real-time control.
Sandboxes are often framed as innovation enablers, but in this domain the main challenges are fragmented information environments and unclear responsibilities. When used to explore information sharing, role configurations, and legal constraints, not to bypass regulations, sandboxes can expose where rules, practices, and digital systems misalign.
Dangerous goods transport is a tightly regulated and interdependent sociotechnical system. Digital tools that ignore the human, legal, and organizational dimensions risk creating a false sense of safety. Effective digital transformation requires models and testbeds that integrate legal accountability, information domains, and professional practice from the start.
Our analysis shows that the potential of digital twins in the transport of dangerous goods depends less on technological sophistication and more on the legal and organizational conditions under which data is produced, shared, and interpreted. Without addressing structural issues of responsibility, information asymmetry, and compliance, a digital twin cannot meaningfully enhance safety.
Regulatory sandboxes can support innovation, but only if they are designed to respect the sector’s core safety logic. Experimentation must not create legal asymmetries or weaken accountability. Instead, sandboxes need clear mandates, well-defined constraints, and strong oversight to ensure that innovation strengthens, rather than destabilizes, an already highly regulated sociotechnical system.
Publications
Sallander, A-S., & Nuldén, U. (202X). Digitala tvillingar och regulatoriska sandlådor: En modell för innovation och regelutveckling. Submitted for publication.
Sallander, A-S., & Nuldén, U. (2025). “Rapportering och erfarenhetsåterföring: Utmaningar och möjliga åtgärder för ökad säkerhet vid farligt gods och farliga verksamheter”, Förvaltningsrättslig tidskrift, 2, pp. 247-300.
Presentations
2023.10.20 Seminar at Dangerous Goods Safety Advisers’ Professional Association
2024.04.23 Northern Lead Day
2024.04.26 Dangerous Goods Conference 2024
2024.11.28 Seminar at SAFER
2025.11.06 Seminar at Dangerous Goods Safety Advisers’ Professional Association
Participants
Ann-Sophie Sallander, associate professor of public law, the University of Gothenburg
Urban Nuldén, associate professor of informatics, the University of Gothenburg
Ylva Hård af Segerstad, professor of communication, the University of Gothenburg
