Investment into Human Risks in Railways and Decision Optimization
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
The Life Quality Index (LQI) is a rational way to establish a relationship among the resources utilized to improve human safety and the expected fatalities that can be avoided by safety improvement. This article uses the LQI approach to quantify the social benefits of a number of safety management plans for a railway facility such as level crossing (LC). We apply influence diagrams (IDs), which are the extensions of Bayesian Networks, to model and assess the life safety risks. In IDs, problems of probabilistic inference, economics-based utility values, and decision alternatives are combined and optimized. The optimal decision, which maximizes total benefits to society, is obtained for the LC. As low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) case, and is a widely accepted risk acceptance criteria in the railway industry. According to the ALARP, there exists a so-called tolerable region between the regions of intolerable and negligible risks. In the tolerable region, risk is undertaken only if a benefit is desired. To quantify socioeconomic benefits, one needs to have an additional risk acceptance criterion such as LQI. In this article we apply and discuss the advantages of the LQI and the IDs for a number of safety management plans for railway LCs.
Details
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 1299-1313 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Human and ecological risk assessment |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 5 |
Publication status | Published - 4 Jul 2015 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- ALARP, influence diagrams, life quality index, life safety risk, railways, risk acceptance criteria