On Software Interoperability for Accident Consequence Assessment: A Feasibility Study for the Definition of an XML Data Format

The present report describes the outcome of a feasibility study to explore the possibility to make consequence assessment software tools interoperable through the definition of a suitable Common Data Exchange Format (CDEF). In this way the input data used by the operators of Seveso type establishments for consequence assessment can be easily exported in a format compatible with the corresponding tools in use by the competentauthority. As an outcome of this feasibility study, a first prototype of CDEF was developed in XML and applied for data exchange amongst different commercially available consequence-related tools. The software CEM to rapidly compare the results of two software packages for accident consequence assessment has been implemented to prove the usefulness of the CDEF. Another test consisted in importing into ARIPAR, a GISbased tool for area risk analysis, the results of accident consequences obtained using well known accident assessment software packages: PHAST, EFFECTS, and ALHOA.