Impacts of lacks in design of control systems in rail transportation

Smart Cities are built on advanced technologies and their interconnections with other systems of different natures. In dependence on kinds of interconnection, we talk about the cyber-physical, socio-technical systems, which are so complex as their number of connections is. Higher complexity magnifies the probability of emergent phenomena occurrence, which have acceptable or unacceptable impacts on system alone and its vicinity. Occurrence of such phenomena is often sudden and unpredictable. In other words, the complexity influences the safety of concerned systems, and hereby, also the human security in the smart cities, i.e. it increases the risks related to system safety towards the human security. Because new technologies introduced in the concept of smart cities are not predictable in term of how they can influence the human system, we need to introduce the proper and sufficient control system that of course brings another complexity and risks. For coping with risks in this new area, we need to learn from lessons obtained in past and to know lacks in the control systems. The work is focused on controls systems in railway domain and on their lacks in design, which caused severe accidents. It provides four examples of severe rail derailments, and outcomes of their analysis, which show the lacks in design of control systems.