Reliability and Safety Management of the Transportation Process Using Systems for Continuous Monitoring of Railway Infrastructure Facilities

While analysing the problem of increasing reliability and safety of the rail transportation process, it is shown that modern train traffic control systems do not automatically consider the events of decrease in reliability of railway infrastructure facilities; however, such a linkage is quite possible. The proposed architecture of a promising train traffic control system can be based on railway automation and remote-control (telemechanics) systems, which have a safe information interface with the means of continuous monitoring of railway infrastructure facilities.The objective of the article is to present theoretical principles of managing reliability and safety of the transportation process using «new generation» automation systems, closely integrated with technical monitoring tools. A demonstrated simplified structure of the train traffic control system has an information interface with the means of continuous monitoring of railway infrastructure facilities. The developed reliability models of the train traffic control system consider the state of railway infrastructure facilities. It is shown that it is necessary to consider the safe state of the infrastructure system in the train traffic control system. Possibilities of managing the risks of reduced reliability and safety of the transportation process are shown using stationary monitoring tools for railway infrastructure facilities. The improvement of monitoring technology and the effective use of stationary monitoring systems makes it practically possible to implement the function of managing reliability and safety of the transportation process and the entire railway complex.