Railway Safety, from a Set of Rules to Cyber Physical Systems

A number of guidelines, policies, tactics, and procedures served as the foundation for safety in the rail transport system. The personnel’s professional abilities must be trained and maintained, but the most crucial step in putting them into practice is having them interconnect logic schemes initially created with mechanical installations and subsequently logic schemes involving relays. It was necessary to update the regulations and modernize the signaling systems due to the events and mishaps that occurred on the railway network and the growth in traffic. Using the Cyber-Physical System (CPS) approach may be the most effective way to introduce new security techniques. A significant area that has been examined by other writers in earlier projects is the thermal inspections of the train and infrastructure components using certain sensors that are linked to the machinery used for railway traffic control. Because of the basic concepts of CPS, the typical layered structure, the large computing and communication capabilities, and the similarity to conventional control systems, the progress and evolution of the railway system must use and apply CPS components. Many factors are involved in this action, from the large rolling stock manufacturers to the particular users. In this work the possibilities to implement the CPS concepts and the potential advantages in the railway system are emphasized. Besides thermal sensors, sensors for other variables and the possibility of integrating them in an intelligent system are studied. On the other hand, very important in the CPS concept are the models for equipment, operation, maintenance, simple example being given.