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ERA Railway Terminology visual v0 featured

ERA Railway Terminology Collection

Last updated: 12 March 2026

The ERA Railway Terminology Collection gathers terms and abbreviations that are contained in the EU legal framework for railway, technical documents produced by bodies which are engaged in the development of important evolution in the railway system and other relevant glossaries.

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The file you will get by clicking the "Download the full Terminology" button below is in CSV format. To convert it to a readable Excel file:

1. Download the CSV file
2. Open a blank Excel sheet
3. Go to Data → Get Data from CSV → select the CSV file you just downloaded
4. The Excel file will be generated (without any encoding issues)

Starting with "H" (138)

ERA Railway Terminology Collection is a consultation tool, developed to support the sharing of information through the actors involved in running the Single European Railway Area (SERA). The responsibility for the correctness, completeness, accuracy, or reliability of the information in ERA RTC lays upon the authors of the definitions, as they derive from reference documents having their own preparation and approval flow. Users cannot call ERA liable for the use they make of the content. Please consider that when the collection is exported (.csv) and then printed or converted, it becomes uncontrolled.
Term Context Document Type Origin document

h.p.

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026

Latest release

Halt

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Halt

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026

Latest release

Handling device

International Relations

Convention

Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)

Handling point

Withdrawn

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1305/2014 of 11 December 2014 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the telematics applications for freight subsystem of the rail system in the European Union and repealing the Regulation (EC) No 62/2006

Latest release

Handling point

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Handover

International Standard

ISO

ISO 22163:2023(en) Railway applications — Railway quality management system — ISO 9001:2015 and specific requirements for application in the railway sector

Handover

SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor

ISO

ISO 22163:2023(en) Railway applications — Railway quality management system — ISO 9001:2015 and specific requirements for application in the railway sector

Latest release

Handover point

Withdrawn

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 454/2011 of 5 May 2011 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the subsystem ‘telematics applications for passenger services’ of the trans-European rail system

Latest release

Handover point

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Handover point

Withdrawn

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1305/2014 of 11 December 2014 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the telematics applications for freight subsystem of the rail system in the European Union and repealing the Regulation (EC) No 62/2006

Latest release

Handover point

Telematics Applications for Passenger and Freight Services

Regulation

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1926 of 31 May 2017 supplementing Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the provision of EU-wide multimodal travel information services

Latest release

Handover point

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026

Latest release

Handrails

Interoperability

Decision

Commission Decision of 30 November 2009 on the reference document referred to in Article 27(4) of Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community. (2009/965/EC)

HAR

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

Hared control mode

International Standard

ISO

ISO/IEC 10026-1:1998(en) Information technology — Open Systems Interconnection — Distributed Transaction Processing — Part 1: OSI TP Model

Harmful effects

Noise

Directive

Directive 2002/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 June 2002 relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise

Harmful interference

ERTMS

Directive

Directive 2014/53/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to the making available on the market of radio equipment and repealing Directive 1999/5/EC

Harmonic characteristics and related overvoltages on the overhead contact line

Interoperability

Decision

Commission Decision of 30 November 2009 on the reference document referred to in Article 27(4) of Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community. (2009/965/EC)

Harmonised risk estimation model

Freight

Glossary

Transport of dangerous goods. Risks Management Framework. Framework glossary v. 1.0/2018