PROTECTRAIL – The Railway-Industry Partnership for Integrated Security of Rail Transport

Abstract

Devastating events such as the 9/11 attacks, as well as the London and Madrid bombings have magnified the need for enhancement in security, particularly in areas of high civilian density. Rail transport is one of those areas and combined with the “globalisation” of security risks, the need for rail security stakeholders to work together and share knowledge has been heightened.PROTECTRAIL is a research project, which seeks to provide a range of integrated railway security solutions. The project follows on directly from the TRIPS project, which sought to design and demonstrate an anti-terrorist detection system.PROTECTRAIL aims to provide a future-proof approach, which can be practicably applied in a realistic context; therefore the project focuses on integrating technologies in an interoperable manner. To achieve this, PROTECTRAIL has agreed on a common architectural design framework, which will ensure that the solutions developed can interface with each other and behave as decoupled Services orchestrated to create systems that are suitable for complex threat scenarios.The principle objectives of this project are to address the security requirements in a future-proof approach in a rail industry where life expectancy of systems is of several decades, while threats and unsocial behaviours change on a daily basis. Accordingly, the project develops a host Service Oriented based architecture and the first elements of a “toolbox” (processes and technologies) to take care of the prominent current needs.The document concentrates on this future-proof architecture, consistent with the current ICT visions, with the aim that the results from this project provide the basis for the future design of homogenous security systems.