European Union Agency for Railways

ERA Railway Terminology Collection

Last updated: 10 September 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:

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Download the full Terminology
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

Supervisory authority

Data Protection

Regulation

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC

Supervisory authority concerned

Data Protection

Regulation

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC

Supervisory board

SERA_EU Transport

Directive

Directive 2012/34/EU of the Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 establishing a single European railway area (recast)

Supplementary sign

International Standard

ISO

ISO 3864-1:2011(en) Graphical symbols — Safety colours and safety signs — Part 1: Design principles for safety signs and safety markings

Supply chain

International Standard

ISO

ISO 22163:2023(en) Railway applications — Railway quality management system — ISO 9001:2015 and specific requirements for application in the railway sector

Supply contract

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)

Supported system version

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Surplus

EU Policy

Glossary

EU budget glossary - A list of the most common words and useful terms concerning the EU budget

Surveillance

Entity in Charge of Maintenance

Certification Scheme

Certification scheme for ECM and outsourced maintenance functions under Regulation (EU) 2019/779

Suspension of authorisation

Vehicles / VA

Decision

Commission Implementing Decision 2011/665/EU of 4 October 2011 on the European register of authorised types of railway vehicles

Sustainable urban mobility plan or SUMP

Infrastructure

Regulation

Regulation (EU) 2024/1679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network, amending Regulations (EU) 2021/1153 and (EU) No 913/2010 and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1315/2013

Sustained flaming

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

Sustained flaming

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

sv

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

SV

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

SvL

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Swap body

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

Swap body

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 5TH EDITION 2019

Swap body

International Relations

Convention

Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)

Swap body

Freight

ERA Technical Document

Codification of lines and wagons for combined transport and associated operational procedures Technical document : ERA/TD/2023-01/CCT - Version : 1.1 on 21 March 2023