ABSTRACT
Railway safety is very important, as it concerns human lives. Therefore, identifying risks from possible failures is vital to maintain the safety of railways. Currently, many mature tools, such as fault tree analysis and event tree analysis, are applied to investigate possible risks to railway safety. However, in many circumstances, the applications of these tools are unable to provide satisfactory results when the risk data are incomplete or there is a high level of uncertainty involved in the risk data, and due to long history of railway industry, expert experience will always play an important role in the risk analysis. Thus, it is essential to apply methods to capture the uncertainty information and expert judgment in the process. This chapter talks about an intelligent system for risk analysis using fuzzy reasoning approach and improved fuzzy analytical hierarchy decision making process, which is specially designed and developed for the railways and able to deal with the uncertainty in risk assessment. The software developed based on the method could be an effective tool to get a better understanding of risks associated with railway assets and make better decisions at the right time for managing the risks under various conditions.
