Using a FMEA–TIFIAD Approach to Identify the Risk of Railway Dangerous Goods Transportation System

Abstract

In this paper a systemic approach that combines Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy information axiomatic design (TIFIAD) is proposed to identify the risk of railway dangerous goods transportation system (RDNGTS), which has seven steps: (1) identify potential risk factors and risk sub-indicators of RDNGTS; (2) define the failure criterion of severity of failures (S), portability of occurrence (O) and possibility of detection (D) of FMEA based on trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (TrIFNs); (3) invite experts to score the TrIFNs of S, O and D for each risk sub-indicator; (4) aggregate the TrIFNs of S, O and D for each risk sub-indicator; (5) calculate the TIFIAD of each risk sub-indicator; (6) calculate the total TIFIAD of each risk sub-indicator; (7) calculate the total TIFIAD of each risk factor. Compared with FMEA, FMEA–TIFIAD has the following improvements: (1) The TrIFNs are applied to score the S, O and D of each risk sub-indicator of RDNGTS; (2) The TIFIAD of the S, O and D are calculated for each risk sub-indicator, the product of the S, O and D could replace the Risk Priority Number (RPN) of FMEA; (3) The Entropy Weight Method is used to calculate the weight of each risk sub-indicator. The calculation results show that the potential human risk should be paid more attentions; the FMEA–TIFIAD is more reliable and accurate than FMEA. Finally the improvement suggestions for managers and operators of RDNGTS are given.