Development of an Audit Guide to Verify Critical Software Quality in Rail Systems

Abstract

In the railway industry there are a lot of critical systems with software products. This software must meet the criteria of RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety), under international standards, particularly in EN 50126, used in the European Union. It is therefore necessary to develop a process for evaluating software compliance acquired and / or developed for railway control. Compliance shall be in accordance with the requirements of EN 50126. Whereas this standard describes the stages of software development, and that the organizations involved in the development of software must implement and use a Quality Assurance System in accordance with the ISO 9000, certification is highly recommended in accordance with this standard. The aim of this work is the development of an audit guide to verify the quality of critical software in railway systems, based on the application of the ISO 90003 standard, which provides the guidelines for the application of ISO 9001. This way, a company that develops software for railway systems, and certifies process quality with ISO 9001 and ISO 90003 standards, would be able to certify their product with EN 50126.