Development of an Intelligent System for Railway Risk Analysis

This article describes the development of an intelligent system for railway risk analysis using fuzzy reasoning approach (FRA) and fuzzy analytical hierarchy decision making process (Fuzzy-AHP), which is specially designed and developed for the railways. In the system, FRA is employed to estimate the risk level (RL) of each failure event in terms of failure probability (FP) and consequent severity (CS). This allows imprecision or approximate information in risk analysis process. Fuzzy-AHP technique is incorporated into the risk model to use its advantage in determining the relative importance of the risk contributors, i.e. weight factor (WF) so that the risk assessment can be progressed from component level to the subsystem level and finally to system level. This risk assessment system can evaluate both qualitative and quantitative risk data and information associated with a railway system efficiently and effectively, which will provide railway risk analysts, managers and engineers with a method and tool to improve their safety management of railway systems and set safety standards. A case study on rolling stock asset risk analysis is used to illustrate the application of the intelligent system.