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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)

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

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

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

ERA

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025

ERA

Infrastructure

Application Guide

Guide on the application of the common specifications of the register of Infrastructure - v. 3.1.0 on 31.03.2025

ERA

Vehicles / VA

Application Guide

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

ERA

Vehicles / VA

Application Guide

Application Guide for the European register of authorised types of railway vehicles (ERATV) - v.5.7 on09.04.2025

ERA

Persons with Reduced Mobility

ERA Technical Document

ERSAD User manual - User manual of the European Railway Stations Accessibility Database - v.0.2 on 10.10.2025

ERA

Safety / SSC-SA

Application Guide

Implementation Guidance for CSIs - v. 6.0 on 24.05.2023

ERA

Freight

Glossary

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

ERA

Withdrawn

Application Guide

TAP TSI Annex B.51 Tariff application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013

Latest release

ERA

Withdrawn

Application Guide

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

Latest release

ERA

Withdrawn

Application Guide

TAP TSI Annex B.55 PRM assistance application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013

Latest release

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

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

ERA

Withdrawn

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

Latest release

ERA

ERTMS

Glossary

ERTMS Glossary

ERA

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