A local DRACAS

DRACAS stands for ‘Defect Recording, Analysis and Corrective Action System’. An organisation can have its own local DRACAS to monitor failure and fault trends and detect defects within systems it owns or operates. This helps manage risk within an organisation.

Watch this video to learn more about what a 'local DRACAS' is:

The National CCS DRACAS

The National Control Command and Signalling (CCS) DRACAS is different to a local DRACAS. It formalises a series of complex coordination processes crucial to the management of rail safety that make information sharing easier across industry. This helps organisations with detecting defects and preventing failures and faults recurring across the network. It improves safety and could save the industry millions.

Why we need a National CCS DRACAS

Signalling equipment has traditionally been located trackside, but modern CCS systems like the European Train Control System (ETCS) bring more of it onto trains. As onboard and trackside equipment is managed by different organisations, this changes who owns certain risks.

That can make information sharing difficult, particularly when commercial interests are involved.

Without sharing data, defects within a CCS system remain undetected. That can lead to repeated instances of the same negative consequences on many occasions. Defects can also affect multiple implementations of the system, subsystem, equipment, or component, in different places.

The National CCS DRACAS will help facilitate this data sharing, detect underlying problems within systems, and share solutions at a national level.

Watch our video about the 'National CCS DRACAS' to learn more:

Benefits

The National CCS DRACAS could save the rail industry around £231m over the next 10 years, once the system is in place. ‘Doing nothing’ could result in industry disbenefits of £315m over the same time period.

Its main system-wide benefits are:

  • organisations can be alerted to faults or failures they are causing in another part of the system, and vice versa.
  • failures, faults, and defects can be investigated at the system level. This means that root causes can be more easily identified.
  • appropriate corrective actions can be agreed, implemented, and monitored at the system level, not only at the level of individual organisations.

This increases all organisations’ ability to detect defects, and also helps them respond effectively, wherever faults or failures occur on the network.

The National CCS DRACAS will also be able to analyse data from multiple organisations and data sources to find hidden trends and improvement opportunities.

RSSB has created guidance on terms such as failures, faults, defects, corrective actions and preventive actions.

Further information can be found on Unwanted events, defect and counteractions page.

Structured stages

The industry has aspired to create the National CCS DRACAS for many years but struggled to make progress. Individual organisations could see the potential strong benefits of such a system, but achieving the National CCS DRACAS is a complex and demanding task. The different aims and objectives of individual projects and the multiple organisations involved makes this a whole-industry challenge.

We used our unique and independent position in the industry to take the first steps and coordinate industry action for the National CCS DRACAS.

The National CCS DRACAS is a highly complex long-term programme that needs clearly structured stages. In collaboration with industry, RSSB have to date:

  • developed and agreed the Concept of Operations ('ConOps') for the National CCS DRACAS, based on a Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach developed by RSSB.
  • revised the relevant Rail Industry Standard (RIS-0707-CCS).
  • set out a roadmap for the development of the National CCS DRACAS.
  • produced a data sharing charter and data specification.

Find more information about the structured stages of the National DRACAS Programme.