European Union Agency for Railways

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)

Download the full Terminology

Starting with "A" (434)

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

Applicant

International Relations

Convention

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

Applicant

Interoperability

Directive

Directive (EU) 2016/797 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on the interoperability of the rail system within the European Union (recast)

Applicant

SERA_EU Transport

Directive

Directive 2012/34/EU of the Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 establishing a single European railway area (recast)

Applicant

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Applicant

SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor

Decision

Commission Decision 2011/765/EU of 22 November 2011 on criteria for the recognition of training centres involved in the training of train drivers, on criteria for the recognition of examiners of train drivers and on criteria for the organisation of examinations in accordance with Directive 2007/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council

Applicant

EU Policy

Regulation

Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2509 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 September 2024 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union (recast)

Applicant

Vehicles / VA

Application Guide

EVR Guidelines – application guide 013PPS1131-01 - V 8.0 on 11.12.2020

Applicant

Telematics Applications for Passenger and Freight Services

TSI

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/253 of 6 February 2026 on a technical specification relating to the telematics subsystem of the rail system in the European Union for interoperability of data sharing in rail transport (TEL TSI) and repealing Regulations (EU) No 454/2011 (TAP TSI) and (EU) No 1305/2014 (TAF TSI)

Latest release

Applicant authority

Single Market Mutual Recognition Conformity Assessment

Regulation

Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on market surveillance and compliance of products and amending Directive 2004/42/EC and Regulations (EC) No 765/2008 and (EU) No 305/2011

Applicant for vehicle/network project

Interoperability

Recommendation

2014/897/EU: Commission Recommendation of 5 December 2014 on matters related to the placing in service and use of structural subsystems and vehicles under Directives 2008/57/EC and 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council

Application document

EU Policy

Regulation

Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2509 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 September 2024 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union (recast)

Application layer

Withdrawn

Application Guide

TAP TSI Annex B.52 Reservation application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013

Latest release

Application level

ERTMS

Technical Document

ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023

Application programming interface or API

Telematics Applications for Passenger and Freight Services

TSI

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/253 of 6 February 2026 on a technical specification relating to the telematics subsystem of the rail system in the European Union for interoperability of data sharing in rail transport (TEL TSI) and repealing Regulations (EU) No 454/2011 (TAP TSI) and (EU) No 1305/2014 (TAF TSI)

Latest release

Application-supported distributed transaction

International Standard

ISO

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

Appropriations

EU Policy

Glossary

EU budget glossary - A list of the most common words and useful terms concerning the EU budget

Approval

International Relations

Convention

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

AQ

International Standard

ISO

ISO 3166 (en) - Online Browsing Platform (OBP) Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country code

AR

International Standard

ISO

ISO 3166 (en) - Online Browsing Platform (OBP) Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country code

Area of implementation of GPRS

Infrastructure

Regulation

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/777 of 16 May 2019 on the common specifications for the register of railway infrastructure and repealing Implementing Decision 2014/880/EU