RESUMO
Hazardous material road transportation is one of the most challenging procedures performed by large trucks and trailers. In this study, after examining and analyzing road hazardous material transportation accidents, occurred over 5 years in Iran, the contributing factors of road hazardous material transportation accidents were determined. Subsequently, the introduced factors were prioritized using fault tree analysis and the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. The results revealed that the frequency of accidents has significantly increased in recent years. It is shown that the three pivotal factors in road hazardous material transportation accidents were transport vehicle, packaging and loading of hazardous materials, and human factors. These findings provide an empirically supported theoretical basis for transportation corporations to take corrective and preventative measures to reduce the accident risks. A novel technique has been introduced for analyzing the causes of road hazardous material transportation accidents. Finally, the absence of hazardous material transportation companies in Iran is introduced as a critical reason for the higher frequency of such accidents in Iran compared to other countries.