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
TENs	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
TENs	EU Policy	Glossary	Eurostat Transport Glossary on web release November 2024
Terminal	Freight	Regulation	Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 concerning a European rail network for competitive freight
Terminal	RNE Glossary	Glossary	RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025
Terminal	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
Terminal Advisory Group (TAG)	RNE Glossary	Glossary	RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2025
Terminal equipment	Data Protection	Regulation	Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC
Terminal Operator	Withdrawn	TSI	Commission Regulation (EU) No 1305/2014 of 11 December 2014 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the telematics applications for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
Tertiary critical event (TCE) - right side	Freight	Glossary	Handbook of scenarios for assessing major chemical accident risks JRC106029 - Ed. 2017
Test	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 9000:2015(en) Quality management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary	Latest release
Test pressure	International Relations	Convention	Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)
Test section	International Standard	ISO	ISO 3381:2021(en) Railway applications — Acoustics — Noise measurement inside railbound vehicles
Test section	International Standard	ISO	ISO 3095:2013(en) Acoustics — Railway applications — Measurement of noise emitted by railbound vehicles
TETA	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
TETA	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
TEU	EU Policy	Glossary	Eurostat Transport Glossary on web release November 2024
TEU	EU Policy	Glossary	Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026
TEU	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
TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit)	EU Policy	Regulation	Regulation (EU) 2018/643 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 April 2018 on rail transport statistics
TEU-kilometre by rail	EU Policy	Glossary	Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026	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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