EN 5012X

Functional Safety Standard for the Rail Industry

The rail industry is one of our oldest forms of mass transit. The technology used has come a long way from those early days of steam and coal; it has become increasingly complex, automated, and autonomous. The demand for confidence in the functional safety of these systems has moved forward in step too. 

The CENELEC EN 5012X series of functional safety standards (or the equivalent IEC standards) are designed to ensure that safety risks due to hazards caused by malfunctioning behavior of systems are reduced to an acceptable level. The series of identical standards; both standards published by CENELEC and IEC respectively, are:

• EN 50126 (IEC 62278) – Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety (RAMS)
• EN 50128 (IEC 62279) – Software (Signaling Systems) 
• EN 50129 (IEC 62425) – System safety (Subsystem Software) 

As with other functional safety standards, the EN 5012X series are risk-based standards. Risk assessments are conducted to determine the safety functions required, and the performance level these functions need to mitigate the risks.

EN 50126 covers the generic aspects of the RAMS lifecycle, and defines a process for specifying requirements for RAMS, and demonstrating that these requirements have been satisfied. 

EN 50128 covers the requirements for developing, deploying, and maintaining signally software. This standard defines Software Safety Integrity Levels (SSIL), increasing from the lowest level of SIL 0 though to the highest of SIL 4.

(Side note: SILs with regards to EN 50128 are different from Safety Integrity Levels in other standards and care should be taken to not confuse them)

EN 50129 covers systems, subsystems or equipment which have been specifically designed and manufactured for railway signaling applications and applies to all the phases of the lifecycle of a safety-related electronic system. 

TÜV SÜD IS YOUR ONE-STOP PARTNER FOR ALL YOUR RAILWAY NEEDS

TÜV SÜD supports rail manufacturers, operators and authorities with a comprehensive portfolio of inspection, testing, and certification services to ensure safe and secure railway transportation. We have over 50 years of experience working on global rail projects and our collaboration with railway authorities and stakeholders worldwide.

Our experts are recognized worldwide as railway safety assessors and technical experts and we are globally accredited and recognized as inspection body, testing body, certification body as well as Notified Body (NoBo), Designated Body (DeBo) and Assessment Body (AsBo).