Design of automatic testing tool for railway signalling systems software safety assessment

Abstract

Recent advances in embedded system technology have brought more dependence on automating train control. While great efforts have been reported to improve electronic hardware safety, there have been fewer systematic approaches to evaluate software safety, especially for the vital software running on board signalling systems. In this paper, we propose a new software tool to evaluate train control system software safety. We have reviewed requirements in the international standards and surveyed available tools in the market. From that, we identified necessary tests to meet the standards and proposed a tool that can be used during the whole software life cycle. We show the functional architecture and internal components of the tool. This tool is unique in that it is a comprehensive tool evaluating reliability and safety together.