Application of Valuation-Based Systems for the availability assessment of systems under uncertainty

The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it proposes an original application of the Valuation-Based System (VBS) for the availability assessment of systems under uncertainty in a time-varying fashion. Uncertainties related to failure data of components (data uncertainty) and the system structure (model uncertainty) are analysed in the proposed model. Second, it proposes the application of the VBS for the availability assessment of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) Level 2 under uncertainty according to the railway dependability standards. The originality of this work lies in the application of the VBS for the availability assessment of systems under data and model uncertainties, and the proposition of a temporal VBS to evaluate the instantaneous system availability.