ISO 26262 (road vehicles — functional safety)

What it is

ISO lists ISO 26262-1:2018, Road vehicles — Functional safety — Part 1: Vocabulary as edition 2, published December 2018, from ISO/TC 22/SC 32. The catalog marks it to be revised (stage 90.92).

The official abstract says the document is intended to be applied to safety-related systems that include one or more electrical and/or electronic (E/E) systems and that are installed in series production road vehicles, excluding mopeds. It addresses possible hazards caused by malfunctioning behaviour of safety-related E/E systems, including interaction of these systems. It does not address hazards related to electric shock, fire, smoke, heat, radiation, toxicity, flammability, reactivity, corrosion, release of energy and similar hazards, unless directly caused by malfunctioning behaviour of safety-related E/E systems.

It describes a framework for functional safety to assist the development of safety-related E/E systems. ISO sells the full text.

What it is not

ISO 26262 is not an aviation standard and not a medical-device standard. We have not found an official ISO catalog sentence that says ISO 26262 is an AI-management standard or that it replaces IEC 61508. ISO/PAS 8800:2024 is the road-vehicle document whose public abstract is about AI technology in those E/E systems.

How it relates to other frameworks

• ISO/PAS 8800. See the ISO/PAS 8800 explainer for AI in series-production road vehicles.
• UL 4600. See the UL 4600 explainer for autonomous-product safety cases. It is not ISO 26262.
• IEC 61508. The basic safety publication for E/E/PE safety-related systems. ISO 26262 is a road-vehicle sector standard.

Primary sources

Read the catalog entry at iso.org. ISO sells the full text.