Collaborative modelling and co-simulation for Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract Model-based design techniques are key to the understanding and development of cyber-physical systems, and their benefits have been demonstrated within many of the disciplines relevant to transportation systems engineering. However, the challenges of transportation systems engineering necessitate breaking down the barriers between monodisciplinary models in order to understand holistically the consequences of technical and policy design decisions. In this chapter we review the need for multidisciplinary model-based systems engineering approaches in the transport sector and identify some emerging techniques enabling the linking of monodisciplinary semantically heterogeneous models. Simulations of such collaborative models (co-models) allow stakeholders to study system behaviour through the life cycle. Given the criticality of some transport applications, we also identify the need for advancing verification techniques in such multidisciplinary models. We illustrate our approach with an industry example in which the integration of diverse design models facilitates analysis of a new distributed rail interlocking system.