In the context of supervision of the safe transportation of radioactive and fissile materials, the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) is responsible for:
- defining technical regulations and supervising their application;
- accomplishing authorisation procedures (approval of packages and organisations);
- organising and implementing inspection procedures;
- proposing and organising information of the public.

In addition, the ASN acts within the context of emergency plans defined by the authorities to deal with an accident.

In a decision of 1 December 1998, the ministers responsible for nuclear safety set up an Advisory Committee for the transportation of nuclear materials, on similar lines to those which already existed. Depending on the importance of the issue, expert assessment by the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), at the ASN's request, could be supplemented by an Advisory Committee review.

This basis has been used for the definition of the modal safety regulations currently in force: the ADR agreement (European agreement on the international transport of dangerous goods by road), RID regulations (regulations concerning the international transport of dangerous goods by rail), the IMDG code (international maritime dangerous goods code) and the technical instructions of the ICAO for air transport. These modal regulations have been fully transposed into French law and have been implemented by interministerial orders. In this context, the ASN has frequent contacts with the government departments dealing with the different modes of transport (Directorate for Inland Transport and Directorate for Maritime Affairs and Seafarers, combined in 2005 into the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Transports, and the General Directorate for Civil Aviation) and has a representative at the Interministerial Committee on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (CITMD).

Transport safety is based on three main factors:
- first and foremost, on the engineered toughness of the packages,
- on transport reliability and certain specially equipped vehicles,
- on an efficient emergency response in the event of an accident.

Regulations are based on IAEA recommendations, which specify package performance criteria. The safety functions to be assured are containment, radiation protection, prevention of thermal hazards and criticality.

The degree of safety of the packages is adapted to the potential harmfulness of the material transported. For each type of package (excepted packages, industrial type packages, type A packages, type B packages, type C packages), the regulations define the associated safety requirements, together with test results to be obtained (see point 1.1).

The ASN aims to intervene as early as possible in the drafting of the regulations, jointly with the IRSN, in particular by taking part in the various international or multinational working groups that exist to deal with the transport of hazardous or radioactive goods.

In this context, the ASN is a member of the IAEA TRANSSC Committee (Transport Safety Standards Committee) and is represented as an expert in many working parties, organised according to transport mode, in cases where radioactive material transport is at issue.

In this way, an ASN representative took part in the TRANSSC committee meeting held from 7 to 11 March 2005 in Vienna. The ASN also took part in the meeting to review comments by all the member states on the proposals for updating the IAEA regulations (2005 edition) which took place from 5 to 9 November 2005.

The ASN is also a member of the safety of radioactive material transports standing working party of the DG Energy and Transport of the European Commission.

In this capacity, it took part in the meetings of this working party on 2 June and 1 December 2005.