Updates in the Regulation on Road Transportation of Dangerous Goods (JT/T 617)

At present, China has more than 124 national and industrial standards regulating road transportation of dangerous goods. To solve this excessive fragmentation, in the next half year of 2018 China MOT is expected to publish “Regulation of Automobile Transportation of Dangerous Goods JT 617” which will serve as China’s first comprehensive standard.

JT 617 specifies stakeholder responsibility throughout the logistical chain of custody to ensure safe transport of dangerous goods and details requirements for consignors, carriers and their employees. The revised JT 617 will be over 700 pages. According to Ms. Fan from MOT, JT 617 has 7 parts:

Part		content
1	General Provisions	Including responsibilities of consignors and carriers, exemption rules, and personnel training
2	Classification	Regulating the flow path to classify dangerous goods; Regulations on radioactive substances are deleted, as there is another standard GB 11086 regulating radioactive substances.
3	Trade Name And Transportation Requirements Index	adopting ADR and add a list of Chinese trade name; It is expected that this part will integrate GB 12268 in the future.
4	Requirements On Transport Package	Focusing on the use of package; the part about package test is deleted
5	Shipping Requirements	Including requirements on labels of the vehicle tanks
6	Operation Requirements On Loading And Unloading	Including requirements on vehicles, operational requirements during loading and unloading process, etc.
7	Operation Requirements On Transportation	Including personnel training, emergency aids.

Compared to ADR, JT 617 has a smaller exemption list. In terms of limited quantities (LQ) or “exempted quantities (EQ)”, they are not applicable for highly toxic chemicals, class 1 explosive or infectious substances.

Also, JT 617 will no longer require that individual tankers are permitted to load only 1 type of dangerous goods. Instead, the new version will introduce a coding system on the tankers. Using the code officials can refer to the types of dangerous goods permitted to be transported by each tanker.