Software Testing Goes Underground

At London Underground Ltd (LUL), getting engineers and their equipment to and from site quickly and safely is a major task for its engineering safety support division. A huge DEC VAX database helps the division maximize the time available for track maintenance and repair. The database is the core of LUL′s Co‐ordination of Railway Engineering Works (CREW) computer system. The introduction of automated software testing has improved the quality of the system as enhancements are introduced. The story reveals how manual testing had not only proved a bottleneck in development but was incapable of delivering the required level of consistency; neither could it properly assess CREW′s performance under heavy load.