STATISTICAL RESEARCH WITHIN THE PERFORMANCE TESTING IN THE CRITICAL TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

Abstract

In the last years crisis management is dealing with many important problems. The current threats of countries, inhabitants, property and natural environment belongs to the most important issues. The extreme weather negative impacts and adverse consequences caused by accidents in technological processes and transport have become more and more frequent and intense events. In addition danger of extremism and terrorism, aimed at important object, is also expanding. In developed countries these objects are parts of critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure sectors in different countries are not unified. In most of the countries the critical infrastructure includes information technologies, energy and transportation. In Slovakia the transportation sector consists of subsectors – road, water, aviation and railway transport. The railway transport is an important subsector of the critical infrastructure. Its importance is unquestionable especially in the field of mass transportation and transportation of bulk substrata. Traditional methods, which were used in the past, were based on experience. The actual possibilities of computer technique enable to explore the railway transport performance through expert information systems. They are based on detailed statistical research. The paper will present the results of the researchers of the Faculty of Special Engineering, University of Žilina focused on the selection and testing the suitable distribution for stochastic events in railway transport. Based on the extensive statistical research the authors demonstrate that the driving time of trains in line sections is more suitable to be considered as random variable with Erlang distribution. The mentioned theoretical findings were used in development of software tool ASTRA that simulates railway transport in emergency situations. Keywwords: Critical transport infrastructure, statistical research, risk management.