Author(s)

J. Mikulski

Abstract

The paper presented failure rate analysis in an example railway area in Poland. The period of observation: year 2000. Railway traffic control system is a special case of control and it is treated as a separate domain of automation. This is due to reliability requirements concerning elements, equipment and traffic control systems. Reliability of operation is understood here as a probability of non-occurrence of a failure in a period of time and in a certain operating conditions. Part of failures occurring in railway traffic control systems and equipment may result in a traffic malfunctioning only, but there have to be separated the failures likely to result in dangerous situations. Thus, considering the impossibility of total elimination of failures, it is important to prevent the occurring failures to impair the railway traffic safety. The possibility of malfunctions exist always, in spite of the fact that all the railway traffic control systems are designed with regard to the full cooperation of all its components, their mutual monitoring and inter-dependence. While considering \“measurement” sites (stations) for determination of reliability of railway traffic control equipment, the following factors have to be taken into account: type of railway traffic control systems and equipment, size of station (number of routes performed). As the most frequently encountered railway traffic equipment are nowadays

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