From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,732030daa45ab98a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 115aec,732030daa45ab98a X-Google-Attributes: gid115aec,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-04-27 11:35:50 PST Path: newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!148.122.208.68!news2.oke.nextra.no!nextra.com!news3.oke.nextra.no.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3AE9BB41.EE89B45@online.no> From: "Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" Organization: Jensen programvareutvikling X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.realtime Subject: Re: European train deaths References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 19:32:33 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 130.67.225.247 X-Complaints-To: news-abuse@nextra.no X-Trace: news3.oke.nextra.no 988396542 130.67.225.247 (Fri, 27 Apr 2001 20:35:42 MEST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 20:35:42 MEST Xref: newsfeed.google.com comp.lang.ada:6994 comp.realtime:2431 Date: 2001-04-27T19:32:33+01:00 List-Id: 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,