Systematic Evaluation and Usability Analysis of Formal Methods Tools for Railway Signaling System Design

Ferrari, Alessio; Mazzanti, Franco; Basile, Davide; Beek, Maurice H. ter

doi:10.1109/tse.2021.3124677

Cited by 30 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…This way, pressing questions, for which industry demands answers, can be addressed and the ield can grow on the basis of scientiic evidence. Research questions to address include the ones already discussed in previous work, also from other domains (e.g., aerospace and cybersecurity [101,102]), and revolve around the applicability of formal methods in real contexts, the maturity of tools [65,66], their learning curve [70,118], their connection with the software engineering practice and processes [62,101,102] and how independent a company can realistically become from academic formal methods experts, e.g., through the usage of covert, hidden or lightweight formal methods [90]. These issues have been widely discussed in the literature, and appear to have not substantially changed over the years [71]; an exception concerns cybersecurity: a large majority of experts recognises an important role for formal methods in cybersecurity.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Surveys on formal methods in industry, including railways, have already appeared in the literature. Some focus on providing personal overviews of past experiences [2,3,40] or on collecting viewpoints of experts [71,74]; others target the railway ield speciically, with questionnaires [12,13], discussion of future challenges [24,60], and comparison of tools in the domain [17,65,66,100]. However, despite the interest of the industry and research communities, there is no systematic study aimed at collecting and analyzing the existing literature in formal methods for railways to provide a framework to move forward in research and practice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Formal Methods in Railways: A Systematic Mapping Study

Ferrari¹,

Beek

2022

ACM Comput. Surv.

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Formal methods are mathematically based techniques for the rigorous development of software-intensive systems. The railway signaling domain is a field in which formal methods have traditionally been applied, with several success stories. This article reports on a mapping study that surveys the landscape of research on applications of formal methods to the development of railway systems. Following the guidelines of systematic reviews, we identify 328 relevant primary studies, and extract information about their demographics, the characteristics of formal methods used and railway-specific aspects. Our main results are as follows: (i) we identify a total of 328 primary studies relevant to our scope published between 1989 and 2020, of which 44% published during the last 5 years and 24% involving industry; (ii) the majority of studies are evaluated through Examples (41%) and Experience Reports (38%), while full-fledged Case Studies are limited (1.5%); (iii) Model checking is the most commonly adopted technique (47%), followed by simulation (27%) and theorem proving (19.5%); (iv) the dominant languages are UML (18%) and B (15%), while frequently used tools are ProB (9%), NuSMV (8%) and UPPAAL (7%); however, a diverse landscape of languages and tools is employed; (v) the majority of systems are interlocking products (40%), followed by models of high-level control logic (27%); (vi) most of the studies focus on the Architecture (66%) and Detailed Design (45%) development phases. Based on these findings, we highlight current research gaps and expected actions. In particular, the need to focus on more empirically sound research methods, such as Case Studies and Controlled Experiments, and to lower the degree of abstraction, by applying formal methods and tools to development phases that are closer to software development. Our study contributes with an empirically based perspective on the future of research and practice in formal methods applications for railways. It can be used by formal methods researchers to better focus their scientific inquiries, and by railway practitioners for an improved understanding of the interplay between formal methods and their specific application domain.

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Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formal Methods in Railways: A Systematic Mapping Study

Ferrari¹,

Beek

2022

ACM Comput. Surv.

Self Cite

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“…[43] The overall usability is so good that "main barriers [to a more widespread inclusion] are the limited support for development functionalities, such as traceability, and other process-integration features." [13]…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is CADP an Applicable Formal Method?

Garavel¹,

Lang²,

Mateescu³

et al. 2021

Electron. Proc. Theor. Comput. Sci.

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“…Impact on the Evaluation of Future Formal Method Research. We expect the manifesto to motivate researchers to carry out comparative method and tool evaluations (e.g., [19]), realistic case studies and goal-directed action research, and controlled method experiments improving over previous lessons learnt [52,57]. For example, in the ABZ community there are ongoing activities to create a case study library for such purposes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Impact on the Further Development of the Formal Methods Community. The manifesto could reduce the current fragmentation of the formal methods community by subsequently integrating selective sub-communities, for example, communities working on common semantic frameworks (e.g., the UTP community 19 ) or formal method integration (e.g., the sub-communities around the "Formal Methods in Industrial Critical Systems (FMICS)", "Integrated Formal Methods (iFM)", "NASA Formal Methods (NFM)", and "Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM)" conference series 20 ). Moreover, the man-ifesto could inspire new actions of researchers to work towards a collection of formal methods that follow the proposed principles.…”

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confidence: 99%

A Manifesto for Applicable Formal Methods

Gleirscher¹,

Pol²,

Woodcock³

2021

Preprint

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Formal methods were frequently shown to be effective and, perhaps because of that, practitioners are interested in using them more often. Still, these methods are far less applied than expected, particularly, in critical domains where they are strongly recommended and where they have the greatest potential. Our hypothesis is that formal methods still seem not to be applicable enough or ready for their intended use. In critical software engineering, what do we mean when we speak of a formal method ? And what does it mean for such a method to be applicable both from a scientific and practical viewpoint? Based on what the literature tells about the first question, with this manifesto, we lay out a set of principles that when followed by a formal method give rise to its mature applicability in a given scope. Rather than exercising criticism of past developments, this manifesto strives to foster an increased use of formal methods to the maximum benefit.

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Systematic Evaluation and Usability Analysis of Formal Methods Tools for Railway Signaling System Design

Cited by 30 publications

References 97 publications

Formal Methods in Railways: A Systematic Mapping Study

Formal Methods in Railways: A Systematic Mapping Study

Is CADP an Applicable Formal Method?

A Manifesto for Applicable Formal Methods

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