When Software Goes Wrong—The Cambrian Line Incident

In this fourth podcast about the impact of software failures on railway asset safety Dr Emma Taylor talks about the causes of the Cambrian Line Incident. Failures both of the software system and of the processes during development, testing and implementation. Also, about the industry's response to recommendation 3 in the RAIB report on the incident.

01:04 The Cambrian Line Incident described.

01:52 How the European Rail Traffic Management System works and what went wrong.

03:39 How this failure could have been foreseen, what led to it, and how it affected the signalling system.

05:41 The RAIB recommendation about safety learning and what didn't happen that should.

07:30 The importance of reporting system faults, however small they may seem.

08:47 How you can tell if the software you are using is complex or not.

10:10 How we need to change our way of thinking about systems that include software.

11:45 How compliance with standards and processes may not show everything that might go wrong.

12:20 Why we all need to learn a bit of a new language.

13:15 What the industry is doing to address these issues.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Loss of safety critical signalling data on the Cambrian Coast line, 20 October 2017: https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/report-17-2019-loss-of-safety-critical-signalling-data-on-the-cambrian-coast-line 

The digital bits of a system podcast https://www.orr.gov.uk/guidance-compliance/rail/health-safety/strategy/rm3 

Other related resources:

LHSBR Infrastructure Asset Integrity section: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/leading-health-and-safety-on-britains-railway/infrastructure-asset-integrity 

LHSBR Rolling Stock Asset Integrity section: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/leading-health-and-safety-on-britains-railway/rolling-stock-asset-integrity