A View and Movement of the Safety and Reliability in Railways of Japan

摘要

For 130 years, the Japanese Railways have achieved satisfactory operating results based upon a deterministic view of risk. However, a railway operation consists of many subsystems and it is disturbed by natural disasters and human errors. In order to effectively maintain such a large-scale complicated system, considering optimal balance of safety, reliability, availability, and maintainability, a deductive approach, such as PSA, would be necessary. We present the current conditions of the safety and the reliability of Japanese railways in general. Also we present a new study plan of system that monitors conditions and locations of moving passengers, running trains, and ground facilities/ constructions, in order to increase efficiency and convenience together with sufficient safety, reliability, availability and maintainability.