ABSTRACT
Big Data Risk Analysis (BDRA) intends to combine the huge volume of information that railway systems produce from a variety of data sources for safety and risk management. One of the most challenging issues is how safety scientists can use big data techniques. This is especially important in the light of data coming from different systems that hold information about critical events, hazards or controls. Yet, the integration of complex safety-related data is not just another IT problem. Fundamentally, it requires the expertise of safety experts in order to make sense of the data. A solution lies in the use of graph databases and ontologies to access this data for safety purposes. This type of database allows for the handling of huge amounts of data whilst it is still accessible to safety experts that are not gifted programmers. This approach opens up big data for safety management and enables a plethora of possibilities for future safety research.
