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Challenging Fundamental Safety Principles

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Presentation
  • Session
  • Tuesday, 12 May 2015
  • 18:12 - 18:12
  • Duration: 13 mins
  • Publication date: 22 May 2015
  • Location: NA, One Wimpole Street, London, United Kingdom
  • Part of event Sacred Cows

About the session

Most of the UK transport systems are operating at or above capacity, what has been done to increase capacity has already been done, for example longer trains, managed motorways and efficient air traffic control on the air corridors around the UK. However, we still need more! This evening seminar will look at whether we would now start challenging what we could call "Fundamental Safety Principles" in these three industries. Can we operate trains, cars and planes at closer headways if we take a very hard look at some of these tablets of stone? Do we have to increase the risk of an accident (will we be allowed to) if even by a small margin in order increase the throughout (and thus reduce other risks e.g. overcrowding etc.) I am sure there will be good arguments for and against!
The keynote speech will be given by Professor John McDermid of the University of York, followed by three short papers from the Automotive (Phil Blythe, University of York, Railway (Daniel Woodland, LRR) and Aerospace (Simon Brown NATS) Sectors, there will then be a 30 minute discussion/debate.
This will be followed by a networking reception, kindly sponsored by Thales.
I am hoping that the output from this seminar will stimulate more detailed papers in each of these three technical networks which will be delivered later in 2015.
Anybody who is working in these industries and is interested in how we can increase the capacity even further by challenging these fundamental principles should attend and please contribute during the debate. This evening will only be a good as you want to make it!

Keywords:
  • Professor John McDermid
  • Safety principles
  • Transport systems

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Communities

Communities

Transport

Transport

Speaker

  • Prof. John McDermid

    Prof. John McDermid

    University of York, Professor of Software Engineering

    John has been Professor of Software Engineering at the University of York since 1987. He set up the High Integrity Systems Engineering (HISE) research group in the Department of Computer Science and was Head of the Department from 2006 to 2012. HISE studies a broad range of issues in systems, software and safety engineering, and works closely with government and industry, e.g. Airbus, BAE Systems, the Civil Aviation Authority, the MoD, QinetiQ, Siemens and Rolls-Royce. He is author or editor of six books and has published about 380 papers. He has advised companies and government departments on several continents, e.g. advising the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on software safety, and reviewing safety management in the UK Defence maritime sector. He has set up and run a number of small companies, and became Chairman of Rapita Systems in January 2014. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2002, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year’s Honours list for services to the Defence Industry.
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