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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Disclaimer
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
Specific case	International Relations	COTIF Document	Uniform Rules concerning the Technical Admission of Railway Material used in International Traffic (ATMF - Appendix G to the Convention) version of 01.11.2023
Specific case	Infrastructure	Application Guide	Guide on the application of the common specifications of the register of Infrastructure - v. 3.1.0 on 31.03.2025
Specific case	Vehicles / VA	Application Guide	Application Guide for the European register of authorised types of railway vehicles (ERATV) - v.5.7 on09.04.2025
Specific case	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 9000:2015(en) Quality management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary	Latest release
Specific constraints imposed by the GSM-R network operator on ETCS on-board units only able to operate in circuit-switch	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
Specific facilities for the transport of freight	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)
Specific information	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
Specific items to place on-board	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)
Specific operational requirements	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)
Specific requirements for power supply	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)
Specific transmission module	ERTMS	Technical Document	ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023
Specification	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 9000:2015(en) Quality management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary	Latest release
Specification of condition of use where ETCS on-board does not implement all functions, interfaces and performances	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)
Specified requirement	Entity in Charge of Maintenance	Certification Scheme	Certification scheme for ECM and outsourced maintenance functions under Regulation (EU) 2019/779
Specimen	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
Specimen	International Standard	ISO	ISO 5660-1:2015(en) Reaction-to-fire tests — Heat release, smoke production and mass loss rate — Part 1: Heat release rate (cone calorimeter method) and smoke production rate
Speed confidence interval	ERTMS	Technical Document	ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023
Speed indication	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)
Spine wagon	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
Splitting from	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.50 Timetable application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release

Common Safety Method
Conformity Assessment
Control-Command and Signalling
Data Protection
Energy
Entity in Charge of Maintenance
ERTMS
EU Policy
Freight
Infrastructure
International Relations
International Standard
Interoperability
Noise
Operation
Persons with Reduced Mobility
Railway Tunnels
Registers
Regulation
RNE Glossary
Safety / SSC-SA
Security
SERA_EU Transport
Single Market Mutual Recognition Conformity Assessment
SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor
Telematics Applications for Passenger and Freight Services
Vehicles / VA
Withdrawn

Agreement
Application Guide
Certification Scheme
CIT Document
Convention
COTIF Document
Council Recommendation
Decision
Directive
ERA Technical Document
EU Technical Document
Glossary
Guide
International Agreement
ISO
Manual
Recommendation
Regulation
Sectorial Scheme
Technical Document
TSI
Website