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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 "D" (379)

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

Driving trailer or cab car

International Standard

ISO

ISO/DIS 22575(en) Railway applications — General terms and definitions

Driving Van

Vehicles / VA

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1302/2014 of 18 November 2014 concerning a technical specification for interoperability relating to the rolling stock — locomotives and passenger rolling stock subsystem of the rail system in the European Union

DRP-provider / Dispute resolution process provider

SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor

ISO

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

Latest release

Drum

International Relations

Convention

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

Dry port

Freight

Glossary

Terminology on Combined Transport from Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE). Prepared by the UN/ECE, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) and the European Commission (EC). UNITED NATIONS - New York and Geneva, 2001

DS

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

DSB

ERTMS

Glossary

ERTMS Glossary

DSC function

Registers

Decision

Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1614 of 25 October 2018 laying down specifications for the vehicle registers referred to in Article 47 of Directive (EU) 2016/797 of the European Parliament and of the Council and amending and repealing Commission Decision 2007/756/EC

DSC function

Vehicles / VA

Application Guide

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

DSSU

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

DST

Withdrawn

Application Guide

TAP TSI Annex B.54 Indirect Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013

Latest release

DTP

EU Policy

EU Technical Document

Technical document from the Publications Office of the European Union - ‘Style guide’ Coordination Interinstitutional Style Guide - version on 19.04.2022

DTT

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Dual cab engine

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Dual-use infrastructure

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

Dump

Withdrawn

Application Guide

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

Latest release

Durable medium

SERA_EU Transport

Directive

Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements, amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 90/314/EEC

Duration of management system certification audits

International Standard

ISO

ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015(en) Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems — Part 1: Requirements

Dust explosion

Freight

Glossary

Handbook of scenarios for assessing major chemical accident risks JRC106029 - Ed. 2017

Duty holder

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