Behavior of a computer based interlocking system under transient hardware faults

The paper addresses the safety analysis and evaluation of a hard real-time, interlocking, railway control system. The major objective is to demonstrate an efficient methodology capable of capturing crucial system dependability characteristics while allowing meaningful results to be obtained within a reasonable time. The evaluation is done by simulating the execution of the control software under transient hardware faults. The study demonstrates that simulation is a valuable approach to quick and accurate assessment of critical, railway control systems. It allows to study the trade-offs between different alternatives and to quantify the impact of crucial system parameters (e.g., scheduling policy in data exchange among redundant units in the system) on the overall system dependability.