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)

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Starting with "S" (636)

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

SS

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

SS

Control-Command and Signalling

ERA Technical Document

Guideline - Certification: Restrictions and added functions V1.0 of 18.06.2024

SSEM

ERTMS

Glossary

ERTMS/ATO Glossary - version 2 on 05.07.2023

SSL

Telematics Applications for Passenger

Application Guide

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

SSP

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

SSS

EU Policy

Glossary

Eurostat Transport Glossary on web

ST

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

STA

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

Latest release

Stabex

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

Stacking

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

Staff

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

Staff access for coupling/uncoupling

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)

Staff and freight access doors

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)

Staff facilities, interfaces and environment

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)

Staff or employees including the staff of contractors

Common Safety Method

Decision

2009/460/EC: Commission Decision of 5 June 2009 on the adoption of a common safety method for assessment of achievement of safety targets, as referred to in Article 6 of Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (notified under document number C(2009) 4246)

Staff Regulations

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)

Staff responsible mode

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Stakeholder

Freight

Glossary

Transport of dangerous goods. Risks Management Framework. Framework glossary v. 1.0/2018

Stakeholders

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

Stakeholders

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