Signaling Design Automation
Meeting the needs for increased rail transportation
The demand for rail transportation capacity is growing and the industry needs to step up. Efficient rail control and signaling solutions are an essential piece of the puzzle in making efficient use of available infrastructure, enabling reliable and safe transport.
The development of these software-based systems is critical in rail transport projects. Delays in delivery, acceptance, and safety approvals of rail control solutions have a highly negative impact on schedules and costs.
Prover is committed to simplifying the development of rail control solutions. Our mission is to supply the industry with tools and processes that meet the requirements and expectations of the end customers. We do this by focusing on the requirement specifications, using automation to develop the systems, and formal and automated methods to prove that the requirements are fulfilled. Leveraging our tools and processes could cut project time and costs in half, with high-quality software and guaranteed safety.
Together with more standardization, this paves the way for increased competition and reduced life cycle costs. And also, in the end, a better customer experience with increased traffic capacity and fewer delays.
How to succeed with your rail control project
Rail control systems constitute a small, yet important, part of infrastructure investments. If the development is not managed properly, the result can be major project delays and cost overruns. A well-functioning signalling system is essential for the rider experience in a passenger network and the overall capacity of the system.
It is clear, based on industry reports and feedback from our clients and partners, that infrastructure managers benefits of more control over their rail control projects. It is essential in order to decrease these risks and to make sure that the systems live up to their expectations.
More control signifies a better ability to keep critical time schedules, lower procurement costs, and a better customer experience. With reduced dependency on a single supplier, the cost of maintenance also decreases and thereby the lifecycle cost of the system. The first step towards increased control is understanding what you need and to be able to communicate this with the supply chain.
With proper requirement specifications the suppliers have a fair chance to deliver systems that meet customer expectations, and the customer can verify that the requirements are fulfilled. Clearly formulated requirement specifications make it possible to:
- Procure the best solution and service for the best price
- Efficiently handle change requests
- Minimize risk for project delays
- Validate that the delivered system meets the requirements and expectations
- Automatically prove safety
- Automate the development process
- Simplify maintenance and upgrades after commissioning
Proper specifications that enable an automated development process is key to succeeding in the delivery of rail control solutions. That’s why infrastructure managers need to make early investments, both in defining these specifications and reinforcing their own knowledge of the current solutions and the solution that needs to be delivered.
Digital Twin – a Digital model of the system
Understanding and clearly specifying your needs, requirements, and expectations before you procure a new rail control solution is the key to getting the system you need at the best price. Then suppliers will also have a fair chance to develop a system to your specification in a time-efficient way with predictable delivery schedules and costs.
But, producing these specifications can be a challenge itself. How can you be sure that your specifications actually correspond to your needs and can easily be understood by all stakeholders?
Our recommendation is to use a formal approach to develop a prototype, or a Digital Twin– a digital model of the system, that you can use to validate your specifications with simulation and formal verification.
The Digital Twin can be developed with the Prover iLock process, where formalized requirement specifications are easily validated using simulation and formal verification on large sets of configuration data. With validated requirements the procurement process is simplified with reduced risks and costs. The Digital Twin can also be made available to suppliers to automate the development process, including design, code generation, test and verification.
The Digital Twin helps infrastructure managers formulate, and evaluate, precise requirements that simplifies the procurement process and reduces the risks for misunderstandings and project delays. By enabling an efficient validation and verification process with automated simulation and formal verification it also reduces the time needed for costly on-site tests. Suppliers can use the Digital Twin as input to the detailed design, using automation tools for code generation, test and verification, further shortening project schedules and reducing costs. The Digital Twin will be used throughout the life cycle of the system, reducing costs for upgrades and adding new features in the maintenance phase.
