Requirements Engineering in Complex Infrastructure: Challenges to the Development and Management of Rail Transport Requirements

This paper investigates information requirements development practices in Australian civil infrastructure projects characterised by the use of models, methods and tools to support a strategic approach to asset information lifecycle management. The research study focuses on rail transport infrastructure where the complexity of rail networks as a cyber-physical systemof- systems makes it increasingly difficult for current Requirements Engineering (RE) practices to handle the myriad of requirement types across temporary project supply chains. Consequently, the RE effort needs to continuously consider multiple disciplinary perspectives of the process throughout the asset life cycle. Using both literature and interview surveys, process-oriented challenges to RE are investigated. Findings identify a lack of implementationready requirements development and management methods supported by interoperable toolchains that provide integration and automation in requirements traceability and change management workflows. The paper closes with a discussion on the correlation of our findings with previous studies and the direction of future research