Safety in Railway Applications: From Development to Approval

The requirements for safety and reliability for new systems in any transport domain, and railway in particular, are increasing steadily. The consideration and continuous improvement of factors such as quality, fault tolerance and reliability as well as user-friendliness are thus key for product success. Call on us for comprehensive support from a single source: From functional and software safety management, RAMS analysis and safety case elaboration.

Our experts help you optimize your processes and improve system safety. We also provide hands-on assistance in the approval of complex transport applications, vehicles, drives and control systems as well as safety-relevant components.

Trust in our extensive cross-industry experience and know-how.

Do you want to know more about our full-service package? Contact us.

With our services for safety assurance in the railway sector, you can increase the reliability, quality and availability of your products, services and the entire system.

Our experts provide support throughout all development and optimization processes, allowing you to reduce potential approval risks, incidents and recalls.

Our support as an independent third party in the approval process reduces your effort and simplifies the cooperation with testing institutes, assessment or certification bodies and authorities.

Safety management:

Make sure your safety processes comply with the latest standards and market requirements. Reduce approval risks, accidents and recalls through comprehensive and independent safety guidance and improve your efficiency in regard to safety documentation.

We actively assist you in the process of checking and improving the functional safety of your systems and railway applications or products.

As your safety or RAMS manager we handle process planning and monitoring on your behalf – both within your organization and at the interface to your customers or relevant authorities.

At this, we pursue a proactive approach: Aligning your safety management with international and national standards and best practice, or resuming responsibility for the conformity documentation itself, or both.

Safety engineering:

Take work load off your development department, save time and costs and improve the quality, reliability, availability and functional safety of your products with our safety expertise and respective engineering support.

We offer a variety of services to help you comply with safety standards and system requirements. Our experienced experts check your concepts, architectures and technology and help you secure or further increase your performance and safety levels. We conduct RAMS analyses and can also prepare the necessary proof of conformity documents for you.

Our service portfolio includes different types of analysis, such as:

• Consequence Tree Analysis (CTA)
• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) / Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)
• Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
• Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA)
• System / Sub-System Hazard Analysis (SHA/SSHA)
• Hazard Log
• Hazard Operability (HAZOP) study
• Interface Hazard Analysis (IHA) / Zonal Analysis
• Maintainability Analysis

Software safety & security:

Our experts also provide comprehensive assistance during the development of safety--relevant software for applications in transport or for mobility in general and offer the following services among others:

• Consulting on software development processes, tools and standardization
• Cybersecurity training
• Analysis or derivation of safety requirements
• Audits and review, both of organization and architectures / code
• Pre-assessment of safety cases or documentary proof of standard conformity

We base this work on standards such as: IEC 61508, EN 5012x, EN 50657, ECSS-Q-80B, DO-178B and also regional or local market requirements standards and industry-specific regulations as required.

Approval management:

Benefit from our extensive experience in approval management, our international positioning and high reputation with authorities and public bodies and secure simple, comprehensive and timely approval. We assist and guide you through the homologation of rail vehicles and infrastructure components worldwide or support you in obtaining approval of changes and retrofitting if necessary. We also can help you to retrieve safety certificates as prerequisite for railway operation or prepare for certification and gaining recognition as service provider, laboratory or expert body for rail and public transport.

Here we follow a structured approach:

1. Determination of the precise basis for approval and coordination with the responsible authorities or accreditation bodies as necessary.
2. Recording and structuring of the individual, precise requirements.
3. Preliminary assessment or review on the basis of the relevant approval framework (step 1 results) and derivation of recommendations or revision needs where necessary.
4. Assistance throughout the approval procedure, for example by moderating the interests of the various stakeholders or helping to resolve complex technical questions.
5. Supporting the compilation of the necessary approval documentation.

We are the right partner for you when it comes to safety assurance within safety-relevant development projects or if you are looking to sustainably optimize your railway or transport applications. Our experts proactively seek solutions and provide optimal safety support when adopting new systems, even if relevant standards are not yet existing and have to be defined first. During the operating phase, we help identify potential improvements and regularly examine if safety management and processes are still valid and efficient.

And we look beyond the railway sector to benefit from best practices and innovation in other industries and transport domains, e.g. aviation and aerospace or automotive with hybrid and electric vehicles, hydrogen and inductive powered systems and infrastructure or automation and digitization.

Learn about our safety assurance services for rail and transport systems. Our experts are happy to help.