Performance based safety critical contracts

The privatisation of the UK rail network has led to many changes in the way railway related organisations have to work, co-operate and manage their engineering processes. This paper concentrates on the impact of the change away from the former British Railways Board “equipment specification and installation” style of contract, to the new “performance based” style, currently employed by Railtrack on major development projects, such as the West Coast Mainline Train Control System. The paper discusses the impact of this change on the system engineering processes adopted by the TRANSIG consortium as part of the WCML Train Control System Development (TCSD)