Status and functioning of the European Commission's major accident reporting system

This paper describes the background, functioning and status of the European Commission's Major Accident Reporting System (MARS), dedicated to collect, in a consistent way, data on major industrial accidents involving dangerous substances from the Member States of the European Union, to analyse and statistically process them, and to create subsets of all non-confidential accidents data and analysis results for export to all Member States. This modern information exchange and analysis tool is made up of two connected parts: one for each local unit (i.e., for the Competent Authority of each EU Member State), and one central part for the European Commission. The local, as well as the central parts of this information network, can serve both as data logging systems and, on different levels of complexity, as data analysis tools. The central database allows complex cluster and pattern analysis, identifying and analysing the succession of the disruptive factors leading to an accident. On this basis, 'lessons learned' can be formulated for the industry for the purposes of further accident prevention. Further, results from analysing data of major industrial accidents reported to MARS are presented. It can be shown that some of the main assumptions in the new 'Seveso II Directive' can directly be validated from MARS data. (Copyright (c) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam. All rights reserved.)