”Open Proof” for Railway Safety Software

”Open Proof (OP) is a new approach for safety and security critical systems and a further development of the Open Source Software (OSS) movement, not just applying OSS licensing concepts to the final software products itself, but also to the entire life cycle and all software components involved, including tools, documentation for specification, verification, implementation, maintenance and in particular including safety case documents. A potential field of applying OP could be the European Train Control System (ETCS) the new signaling and Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system to replace some 20 national legacy signaling systems in all over the European Union. The OP approach might help manufacturers, train operators, infrastructure managers as well as safety authorities alike to eventually reach the ambitious goal of an unified fully interoperable and still affordable European Train Control and Signaling System, facilitating fast and reliable cross-border rail traffic at state of the art safety and security levels.