RAMS for Railway: Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety
CSM-RA Common Safety Method for Risk Evaluation and Assessment
The objective of a railway system is to always achieve a certain level of traffic, operate safely and under the cost established limits, avoiding loss of value.
The application of the RAMS process in railway systems makes possible to determine the confidence with which this objective can be achieved. The RAMS values determine the safety and quality level the railways service is offered to the customer, considering relevant factors as the functionality and performance.
RAMS parameters are long-term exploitation characteristics of the railways system and are achieved through the application of established engineering concepts, methods, tools and techniques throughout the life cycle of the system.
RAMS parameters depend on the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the subsystems and components that integrate the complete system. RAMS values determine the dependability of a system and are given by the combination of interrelated characteristics related to reliability, availability, maintainability and safety.
RAMS CENELEC standards and Regulation No. 402/2013 (CSM RA) Common Safety Method for Risk Assessment and Evaluation, as amended by Regulation 2015/1136, establish the requirements to be fulfilled by railway subsystems and components. RAMS safety standards establish the safety process to be applied for new developments or modifications of railway subsystems.
At XEFRA, we combine a deep competence in RAMS together with the specific expertise for each railway subsystem: Rolling Stock. Control- Command and Signalling Systems, Energy and Infrastructure.
RAMS Safety process
We implement the RAMS safety process performing systematic analyses on the system to determine those adverse conditions, hazards, that may appear throughout the project life cycle.
Losses may relate to human, property and/or environmental damage.
- PRA Preliminary Risk Analysis
- HAZOP Operational Hazard Analysis
- FMECA Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis
- FTA Fault Tree Analysis
- RAM Availability Studies.
- FS Functional Safety
- SIL Safety Integrity Level Assignment and Demonstration Hazard Log Risk Management and Register
- V&V Verification and Validation Process
- Safety Case RAMS Safety Process Demonstration
WAYSIDE AND ON-BOARD RAILWAY SIGNALING
We have many years of experience in wayside and on-board railway signaling, such as:
- Interlocking
- Track circuits
- Axle counters
- Wayside objects (point machines, level crossing, signals)
- LEUs
- Radio Block Center
- CBTC
- On board ETCS (EVC European Vital Computer, DMI Driver Machine Interface, BTM)
- Eurobalise
- ERTMS/ETCS subsystem
- TCMS – Train Control Management System
- Breaking system
- Railway Subsystem Integration
- Onboard Fire detection