Skip to main content
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.

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 "M" (337)

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

Minimum Dwell Time

ERTMS

Glossary

ERTMS/ATO Glossary - version 2 on 05.07.2023

Minimum horizontal curve radius, vertical concave curve radius, convex curve radius

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)

Minimum radius of horizontal curve

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

Minimum radius of horizontal curve

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

Minimum radius of vertical curve

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

Minimum wheel diameter

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)

Minimum wheel diameter for fixed obtuse crossings

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

Minor

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

Minor failure

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Minor nonconformity

International Standard

ISO

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

Latest release

mips

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

MIRAS

Freight

Glossary

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

MISEP

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

Missed connection

SERA_EU Transport

Regulation

Regulation (EU) 2021/782 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2021 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations (recast)

Missiles ejection

Freight

Glossary

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

Missing link

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

Mission

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Mission, ETCS

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

MITI

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

Latest release

MK

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