Re: European train deaths

["Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" <tarjei@online.no>]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:
> 
> Something which occured to me only yesterday (unless I cleanly
> forgot before) is that Ada and formal methods are used for
> European train systems and so these may be involved in some
> of the spate of fatal crashes over the last circa two years
> in the U.K.; Norway; and elsewhere in the E.U.. At least one
> in the U.K. had to do with a light signalling error if
> memory serves correctly but I do not recall if this had
> anything to do with software. It may be worthwhile to investigate this --
> would any of ye happen to remember if computers were involved in these
> locomotive incidents?

The norwegian accident seems to have been caused by an aggregation of
circumstances. The rail controllers failed to notice that the trains
could collide due to a mindnumbing design flaw in the software which
they use to keep track of the trains. In addition they could not
communicate with one or more of the trains because they 1) had the wrong
mobile phone number 2) there were no cover at the site 3) they had no
rail phone system. The money they had gotten for automatic train stop
had been spent on something else (i'm not sure about this). The railway
had changed procedures for allowing a train to leave a station. It used
to be that you needed two people to agree to leave the station, but
suddenly only the driver should do this. These days the conductor must
OK leaving a station.


The railway has shown other signs of gross ineptitude. They have to
cancel trains because there are not enough train drivers around.

In short: nobody trust them much theese days.


Greetings,