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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)

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

Carrier

Telematics Applications for Passenger

Application Guide

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

Carrier

Telematics Applications for Passenger

Application Guide

TAP TSI Annex B.53 Direct Fulfilment application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013

Carrier

Telematics Applications for Passenger

Application Guide

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

Carrier

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

Carrier

International Relations

Convention

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

Carrier

Safety / SSC-SA

Directive

Directive (EU) 2016/798 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on railway safety (recast)

Carrier, Joint

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

Carrier, Sole

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

Carryover

EU Policy

Glossary

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

CASCO

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

Latest release

CAST

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 5TH EDITION 2019

Casuality

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 5TH EDITION 2019

Catastrophic accident

Common Safety Method

Regulation

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 402/2013 of 30 April 2013 on the common safety method for risk evaluation and assessment and repealing Regulation (EC) No 352/2009

Catastrophic rupture

Freight

Glossary

Handbook of scenarios for assessing major chemical accident risks JRC106029 - Ed. 2017

Categories of goods carried by rail

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 5TH EDITION 2019

Category of line

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

Category of person in railway accident statistics

EU Policy

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 5TH EDITION 2019

Category of vehicle

Entity in Charge of Maintenance

Certification Scheme

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

Category of vehicles

Entity in Charge of Maintenance

Sectorial Scheme

Sectorial Scheme for accreditation and recognition of ECM certification bodies under Regulation (EU) 2019/779. ERA 1172/002 V3.1 on 15/06/2020

Catenary

RNE Glossary

Glossary

RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025