Approach for the Certification of Safety Related Satellite Based Railway Applications

This paper considers an approach for the certification of safety-related, satellite-based transport applications across different transportation modes. The authors note that there is a high demand to introduce the European satellite-based localization system, GALILEO, into various transportation domains. In some industries (air and sea shipping) there is already experience using the operational GPS system. However, in the field of railroad and highway transportation, the demand for safety related applications using position information is rising and adequate methodologies for their certification do not yet exist. For economic reasons, it seems sensible to share knowledge and determine the application of standards across the various transportation domains, including railroad, aviation, maritime and road transportation. The authors describe how the application and utilization of formal specifications and descriptions can help the communication process between various stakeholders. One major problem for experts in the different domains is the understanding of the meaning of concepts and terms used by the other domains. The authors call for the content of the standards being expressed formally by means of a taxonomy of terms and through an explicit description of the processes involved. The railway industry is used as a case example for how these standards can be applied in a real world scenario.