SIGNAL+DRAHT | Issue 03/2024
A safety approach for new technologies in rail transport
Railway technology is a highly traditional technological area with safety principles that have existed for more than 150 years (e.g. see Pachl [15]). Nevertheless, railway safety has become increasingly innovative over recent decades. This started with electronic interlockings that required a new type of standard, such as EN 50128 [12] and EN 50129 [13]. This has led to a completely new approach to checking whether an electronic device is safe, i.e. the safety assessment. New developments such as automatic underground railways, Automatic Train Operation (ATO), the Hyperloop (a maglev train running in a low-pressure tube), the use of hydrogen as a fuel, the implementation of artificial intelligence as well as the increasing importance of cybersecurity all require further adaptations of the safety assessment methods....