On the Industrial Uptake of Formal Methods in the Railway Domain [chapter]

Davide Basile, Maurice H. ter Beek, Alessandro Fantechi, Stefania Gnesi, Franco Mazzanti, Andrea Piattino, Daniele Trentini, Alessio Ferrari
2018 Lecture Notes in Computer Science  
The railway sector has seen a large number of successful applications of formal methods and tools. However, up-to-date, structured information about the industrial usage and needs related to formal tools in railways is limited. As a first step to address this, we present the results of a questionnaire submitted to 44 stakeholders with experience in the application of formal tools in railways. The questionnaire was oriented to gather information about industrial projects, and about the
more » ... and quality features that a formal tool should have to be successfully applied in railways. The results show that the most used tools are, as expected, those of the B family, followed by an extensive list of about 40 tools, each one used by few respondents only, indicating a rich, yet scattered, landscape. The most desired features concern formal verification, maturity, learnability, quality of documentation, and ease of integration in a CENELEC process. This paper extends the body of knowledge on formal methods applications in the railway industry, and contributes with a ranked list of tool features considered relevant by railway stakeholders.
doi:10.1007/978-3-319-98938-9_2 fatcat:o6rcqn3t3fdvhaxaasyaqemel4