Identification of safety and security critical systems and activities

Terje Aven

Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 2009, vol. 94, issue 2, 404-411

Abstract: There are many initiatives taken to identify safety and security critical systems and activities, at different levels and in different contexts, ranging from infrastructures at the societal level to equipment on the production plant level. Different approaches are implemented to define the critical systems and activities. Some of these relate to vulnerabilities, others incorporate the probability dimension and are risk based. We also see approaches taking into account values of the decision-maker and relevant stakeholders. In this paper, we discuss the rationale for these approaches. Is vulnerability an adequate measure to be used as a basis for determining criticality? Is it meaningful to specify safety and security critical systems and activities without addressing risk? How should we take into account the limitations of the risk assessments? Should we extend the concept of criticality to also cover utility aspects? We bring new insights into the discussion by being precise on the key risk concepts—including uncertainty, probability and expected value—and considering alternative risk perspectives. A novel approach is suggested based on expected values and uncertainties in underlying phenomena and processes. Our main concern is activities with potential severe consequences and large uncertainties.

Keywords: Critical systems; Infrastructures; Risk; Vulnerability; Uncertainties; Utility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832008001312
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reensy:v:94:y:2009:i:2:p:404-411

DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2008.04.001

Access Statistics for this article

Reliability Engineering and System Safety is currently edited by Carlos Guedes Soares

More articles in Reliability Engineering and System Safety from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().