Applications of formal methods, modeling, and testing strategies for safe software development

The challenges posed by the new scenarios of railway transportation (liberalization, dis- tinction between infrastructure and operation, high speed, European interoperability, etc.) have a dramatic impact on the safety issues. This impact is counterbalanced by the grow- ing adoption of innovative signaling equipment (the most notable example is the European Rail Traffic Management System/European Train Control System) and monitoring sys- tems (such as onboard and wayside diagnosis systems). Each one of these devices includes some software, which in the end makes up the major part of their design costs; the malle- ability of the software is paramount for the innovation of solutions. On the other hand, it is notorious how software is often plagued by bugs that may threaten its correct functioning: how can the high safety standards assumed as normal practice in railway operation be compatible with such threats?