A Refined Framework for Model-Based Assessment of Energy Consumption in the Railway Sector

Awareness and efforts to moderate energy consumption, desirable from both economical and environmental perspectives, are nowadays increasingly pursued. However, when critical sectors are addressed, energy saving should be cautiously tackled, so to not impair stringent dependability properties such contexts typically require. This is the case of the railway transportation system, which is the critical infrastructure this paper focuses on. For this system category, the attitude has been typically to neglect efficient usage of energy sources, motivated by avoiding to put dependability in danger. The new directives, both at national and international level, are going to change this way of thinking. Our study intends to be a useful support to careful energy consumption. In particular, a refined stochastic modeling framework is offered, tailored to the railroad switch heating system, through which analyses can be performed to understand the sophisticated dynamics between the system (both the cyber and physical components) and the surrounding weather conditions.