On validation of the safety analysis of modern railway systems

Safety analysis is a key activity for the development of railway transportation systems. The analysis is used not only to determine whether new systems do not expose the general public to unduly high levels of risks, but also to inform the development process itself through identification and allocation of appropriate requirements. Whilst inadequate and inaccurate safety analysis may have potentially catastrophic consequences, it is rarely validated in practice. This paper presents a case for validation of safety analysis of the railway systems along with a technical approach to such validation. The approach is based on the concept of Failure Injection and the Lightweight Refinement relation. The paper further argues that the safety analysis validation should be embedded in a wider uncertainty management framework and shows how this can be made consistent with the spirit of the existing safety standards of the railway domain.