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
Section	ERTMS	Technical Document	ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023
Section coupon	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.51 Tariff application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release
Section of line (SoL)	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
Section timer	ERTMS	Technical Document	ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023
Section with train detection limitation	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
Sectioning locations	Energy	TSI	Commission Regulation (EU) No 1301/2014 of 18 November 2014 on the technical specifications for interoperability relating to the energy subsystem of the rail system in the Union
Sector Forum Rail (SFR)	Infrastructure	Glossary	European Rail Infrastructure Managers
Sector scheme	Single Market Mutual Recognition Conformity Assessment	Guide	The ‘Blue Guide’ on the implementation of EU product rules 2022
Sectoral Social Dialogue (SSD)	Infrastructure	Glossary	European Rail Infrastructure Managers
Secure storage	International Standard	ISO	ISO/IEC 10026-1:1998(en) Information technology — Open Systems Interconnection — Distributed Transaction Processing — Part 1: OSI TP Model
Securing	ERTMS	ERA Technical Document	Technical Document ERTMS Operational Principles and Rules ERA_ERTMS_OPE_AppA_5 / V 5.0 on 09.04.2019
Securing	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
Security	ERTMS	Technical Document	ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023
Security background	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.53 Direct Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release
Security background	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.54 Indirect Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release
Security certificate	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.54 Indirect Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release
Security feature	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.53 Direct Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release
Security feature	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.54 Indirect Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release
Security in data	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.54 Indirect Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013	Latest release
Security in media	Withdrawn	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.54 Indirect Fulfilment 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