A scenario-based FMEA method and its evaluation in a railway context

Abstract

Safety analysis of railway CBTC systems aims at finding and validating failure scenarios. In this article we present a scenario-based FMEA method based on ScOLA, a scenario oriented modeling language dedicated to the analysis and formalization of complex systems. The specifications of such systems are usually spread in documents of thousands of pages written in a natural language. These documents are the basis for the safety analysis and validations activities. Therefore, we propose the scenario-based FMEA method to perform safety analysis that is more efficient than the paper-based analysis. The method retrieves and evaluates failure scenarios using functional ones. The article aims at presenting the method and its application on a railway system.