SIGNAL+DRAHT | Issue 03/2006
Optimising cost and safety by appropriate use of European Norms
It has been found that risk analyses carried out in accordance with the European Standards and reflecting the specific detail of each application has led to a great escalation of cost of safety approval. Producing a separate risk analysis for each installation in a country increases the costs without discernable benefit. There is scope for making substantial cost reduction through new approaches to generic risk analysis. The use of formal procedures in accordance with the European Standards may not lead to better quality of developments – on the contrary quality could be lost as resources are applied to the expanded needs of risk quantification and documentation at the expense of other quality related activities that depend on highly experienced railway signalling engineers to deliver assured system reliability and availability.