Skip to main content
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.

Click here for more information

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 "C" (756)

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

Competent authority

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

Competent local authority

SERA_EU Transport

Regulation

Regulation (EC) N. 1370/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on public passenger transport services by rail and by road and repealing Council Regulations (EEC)

Competent National Authority

Freight

Agreement

General Contract of Use for wagons (CGU)

Competitive rail transport prices

International Relations

Agreement

Agreement between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation on the Carriage of Goods and Passengers by Rail and Road

Compiled energy billing data (CEBD)

Energy

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1301/2014 of 18 November 2014 on the technical specifications for interoperability relating to the energy subsystem of the rail system in the Union

Complaint

International Standard

ISO

ISO/IEC 17025:2017(en) General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories

Complaint

International Standard

ISO

ISO/IEC 17020:2012(en) Conformity assessment — Requirements for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection

Complaint

SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor

ISO

ISO 9000:2015(en) Quality management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary

Latest release

Complementary certificate for train driver

SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor

Directive

Directive 2007/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on the certification of train drivers operating locomotives and trains on the railway system in the Community

Compliance assurance

International Relations

Convention

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

Compliance of structures with the High Speed Load Model (HSLM)

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

Compliance of the tunnel with TSI INF

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

Component

Freight

Application Guide

GUI/WAG TSI/2021 - version 3.0 on 15/02/2021 Guide for the application of the WAG TSI

Component

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

Component

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

Composite

International Standard

ISO

ISO 5658-2:2006(en) Reaction to fire tests — Spread of flame — Part 2: Lateral spread on building and transport products in vertical configuration

Composite IBC with plastics inner receptacle

International Relations

Convention

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

Composite packaging

International Relations

Convention

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

Comprehensive network

International Relations

Regulation

Regulation (EU) 2021/1153 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2021 establishing the Connecting Europe Facility and repealing Regulations (EU) No 1316/2013 and (EU) No 283/2014

Comprehensive trans-European transport network or TEN-T

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