Rapid Risk Assessment of Technical Systems in Railway Automation

The European Railway Agency (ERA) has the challenging task of establishing Common Safety Targets and Common Safety Methods throughout Europe. In this context, the harmonization of risk assessment methods is also discussed. The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach to risk assessment of technical systems in railway automation, which allows a rapid risk assessment while at the same time also allowing a rigorous check that the method is well constructed and robust. As a particular reference, a new German pre-standard, which lays out requirements for such semi-quantitative approaches, is taken into account. A particular method is constructed in this paper and the means by which compliance with legal and regulatory requirements can be demonstrated, is discussed. Although the paper deals with the European legal framework in railway automation, the approach can easily be generalized to other legal frameworks and other application domains.