It is not new applying a socio-technical approach to analyse the safety of complex systems. Early works from Reason (Reason et al. 1998), Rasmussen (Rasmussen 1997), and Leveson (Leveson 2004) already provided frameworks of socio-technical approach by identifying layers in a system actually involved in the control of safety. However, as systems are more and more complex, the challenge in these socio-technical approaches to system safety is now a problem of modelling. It is widely accepted that architecture is the foundation of good system engineering. Thus the model in a systems theoretic approach of system safety should be embodied in all components (both social and technical) in the system and their relationships to each other and the environment. The key objective is to explore whether safety analysis on a socio-technical system can benefit from model-based approach in which system engineers and safety engineers share a common model. To evaluate and demonstrate our approach, we developed a software tool to help the application of our approach. The case study analyses a tram accident: the derailment at East Croydon in February 2012. The analysis is purely based on the information from the official investigation report (RAW 2012) so the architecture of entire organisation may not be represented completely; but it is adequate enough for the discussion of a general architecture-based approach to the safety of social-technical systems.
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