Securing positive train control systems

Abstract

Positive train control (PTC) systems are distributed interoperable systems that control the movement of passenger and freight trains, providing signicant safety enhancements over traditional methods of operating railroads. Due to their reliance on wireless communications, PTC systems are vulnerable to attacks that can compromise safety and potentially cause serious accidents. Designing PTC systems that can mitigate the negative e.ects of wireless-based exploits are mandatory to ensuring railroad safety. This paper employs use cases and misuse cases to analyze the effects of exploiting vulnerabilities in PTC systems. Use cases specify operational interactions and requirements, while misuse cases specify potential misuse or abuse scenarios. A distributed trust management system is proposed to enable PTC use cases and eliminate identifed misuse cases. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processin.