European Union Agency for Railways

ERA Railway Terminology visual v0 featured

ERA Railway Terminology Collection

Last updated: 5 December 2025.

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 "E" (716)

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

EPPPS

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

EPSC

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

EPSMA

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

Latest release

EPSO

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

EPTA

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

Latest release

Equipment and other facilities on-board for staff

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)

Equipment to the windscreen

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)

Equipped line

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Equity

EU Policy

Glossary

The Social Costs of Transport - February 1997

Equity investment

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)

Equivalence

Persons with Reduced Mobility

Application Guide

Guide for the application of PRM TSI - Appendixes Reference in ERA: ERA/GUI/02-2013/INT - Version in ERA: 1.1 on 18 May 2015

Equivalent conicity

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)

Equivalent conicity

Infrastructure

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1299/2014 of 18 November 2014 on the technical specifications for interoperability relating to the ‘infrastructure’ subsystem of the rail system in the European Union

Equivalent isotropically radiated power (e.i.r.p.)

ERTMS

Decision

Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/1730 of 28 September 2021 on the harmonised use of the paired frequency bands 874,4-880,0 MHz and 919,4-925,0 MHz and of the unpaired frequency band 1900-1910 MHz for Railway Mobile Radio (notified under document C(2021) 6862)

ER

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

ERA

Interoperability

Application Guide

Application_guide GUI/TSI/2023 Version 1.0 20/12/2023Guide for the application of the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs)

ERA

Entity in Charge of Maintenance

Certification Scheme

Certification scheme for ECM and outsourced maintenance functions under Regulation (EU) 2019/779

ERA

Operation

TSI

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/773 of 16 May 2019 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the operation and traffic management subsystem of the rail system within the European Union and repealing Decision 2012/757/EU

ERA

Telematics Applications for Freight

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

ERA

Telematics Applications for Passenger

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