Total safety by design: Increased safety and operability of supply chain of inland terminals for containers with dangerous goods

•Disaster prevention from the earliest stages of ITDGs design.•Holistic analysis of the criteria involved in the design of safe ITDGs.•Diminishment of risks associated with ITDGs trough total performance management.•Assessment tool for the total safety management of ITDGs.•Improving the social inclusivity of seaports by using the ITDG concept as a safe option. In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in the international transport of containers with dangerous goods, increasing the risk of seaports and surrounding cities together with the introduction of inherent environmental and security disaster risks. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in seaports that are more socially inclusive, addressing the storage of containers of hazardous goods to safe inland terminals. An appropriate design of inland terminals for containers with dangerous goods (ITDGs) may contribute to the achievement of a sustainable development and the minimization of risks, avoiding disasters such as Tianjin. The objective of this study was the analysis of the criteria used for the design of safe, secure, cost efficient and greener ITDGs by applying the multicriteria decision theory AHP (analytic hierarchy process). Criteria regarding safety and security, environmental care, productivity and information and communication technologies (ICT) have been considered simultaneously into a total performance management system.