The railway operation process evaluation method in terms of resilience analysis

In complex socio-technical systems there is an influence of safe unwanted events on the occurrence of accidents. It is like domino bricks. Therefore, it is not only the recovery from major events that is important, but also the recovery from disruptions in operation. As the literature review shows, the recovery of operation processes is analysed by single criterions for small disruptions. On the other hand, resilience research is focused on the network and major events, but not on frequent small-consequence events that affect operational processes. The performance of a system is a key parameter when evaluating resilience. As a result of the performed literature survey, the aim of the paper was to propose a new method for evaluating performance in terms of operational processes and resilience analysis. Moreover, it is also important to order the most important terms related to this issue, as well as to introduce new types of qualities, which are not only focused on the system, but also on the implemented operational processes. The paper consists of eight sections. The introduction section describes generally the problem, that leads to formulation of the aim of the paper and description of its structure. It is followed by the second section consisting of a complex literature survey. Section three orders the reliability, robustness and resilience definitions. Section four analyses the performance influencing factors using Fault and Event Tree Analysis, while section five defines the operational layer of the system and shows a formal description of operation processes. Section six presents the operation process evaluation model. It was elaborated using the Fuzzy Logic approach, that allows combining of incoherent system and process qualities: punctuality, probability no further delays, quantitative implementation of scheduled processes, reconfiguration level. Afterwards a case study is shown to present the method application. The performed case study shows the advantages of the proposed approach, which is related to the most common methods. The paper ends with conclusions and further research perspectives.