A tool for risk analysis and protection design of railway infrastructures

The terrorist attacks occurred in different Countries in the last decade do not have only shown that transportation systems are not suitably protected from such attacks, but they also (especially) stressed that their results can sometimes go out of control, at least for a while. As far as it regards mass transportation systems, it is clear that, due to their often spectacular, far-reaching consequences, they result specially attractive for such attacks. In particular, looking at ground transportation systems, and especially at railways, it is easy to observe that they are particularly difficult to be “secured”, owing to their characteristics of high accessibility and wide extension. Referring to the above outlined framework, the present paper deals with the definition of a practical, “friendly-use” risk analysis tool, characterized by a modular architecture, whose twofold end is to provide a good risk evaluation and indicate actions for risk mitigation, without neglecting the related feasibility issues. Therefore in the paper, besides the description of the devised tool, the specifications to integrate different procedures and methodologies to make up a single risk analysis (RA) and physical protection system (PPS) design tool are defined and fully described. Moreover, some considerations about qualitative and quantitative data are provided and, finally, a case study, relevant to a real-world experience made by the authors on the Italian high speed railway lines, is presented and discussed.