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Design for the Value of Safety

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Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design

Abstract

Two major methods for achieving safety in engineering design are compared: safety engineering and probabilistic risk analysis. Safety engineering employs simple design principles or rules of thumb such as inherent safety, multiple barriers, and numerical safety margins to reduce the risk of accidents. Probabilistic risk analysis combines the probabilities of individual events in event chains leading to accidents in order to identify design elements in need of improvement and often also to optimize the use of resources. It is proposed that the two methodologies should be seen as complementary rather than as competitors. Probabilistic risk analysis is at its advantage when meaningful probability estimates are available for most of the major events that may contribute to an accident. Safety engineering principles are more suitable to deal with uncertainties that defy quantification. In many design tasks, the combined use of both methodologies is preferable.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this simplified example, it is assumed that in case of properly functioning signals, the driver will also stop at the halt line. Hence, for a collision to occur, it is both necessary that the signals fail and that the driver is not able to brake in time.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Technology, Policy and Management, TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands

    Neelke Doorn

  2. Division of Philosophy, Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 78 B, Stockholm, 100 44, Sweden

    Sven Ove Hansson

Authors
  1. Neelke Doorn
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  2. Sven Ove Hansson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Neelke Doorn .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Jeroen van den Hoven

  2. Department of Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Pieter E. Vermaas

  3. Department of Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Ibo van de Poel

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Doorn, N., Hansson, S.O. (2015). Design for the Value of Safety . In: van den Hoven, J., Vermaas, P., van de Poel, I. (eds) Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6969-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6970-0

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