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
PICS	International Standard	EU Technical Document	CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025
Piggyback	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
Piggyback transport	EU Policy	Glossary	Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026	Latest release
Piggyback transport	International Relations	Convention	Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)
PIM	Withdrawn	TSI	Commission Regulation (EU) No 1305/2014 of 11 December 2014 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the telematics applications for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
PIM	RNE Glossary	Glossary	RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025
PINC	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
Pipe network (pipe)	Freight	Glossary	Handbook of scenarios for assessing major chemical accident risks JRC106029 - Ed. 2017
PIS	ERTMS	Glossary	ERTMS/ATO Glossary - version 2 on 05.07.2023
PIXIT	International Standard	EU Technical Document	CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025
PK	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
PKI	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
PKI	ERTMS	Technical Document	ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023
Pkm	EU Policy	Glossary	Eurostat Transport Glossary on web release November 2024
pkm	EU Policy	Glossary	Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026
PKN	International Standard	EU Technical Document	CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025
PKP	ERTMS	Glossary	ERTMS Glossary
pl	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
PL	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
Place of delivery	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

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

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