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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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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

Validator

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

Validity

EU Policy

Decision

Commission Decision (EU) 2021/2121 of 6 July 2020 on records management and archives

Valuation

EU Policy

Glossary

The Social Costs of Transport - February 1997

Value

SERA_EU Transport

Regulation

Regulation (EC) N. 1370/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on public passenger transport services by rail and by road and repealing Council Regulations (EEC)

Value (of a parameter)

Freight

Glossary

Transport of dangerous goods. Risks Management Framework. Framework glossary v. 1.0/2018

Van

Vehicles / VA

TSI

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1302/2014 of 18 November 2014 concerning a technical specification for interoperability relating to the rolling stock — locomotives and passenger rolling stock subsystem of the rail system in the European Union

Vapour cloud explosion and flash fire

Freight

Glossary

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

Variable

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

VAT

Withdrawn

Glossary

Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026

Latest release

VAT

Withdrawn

Application Guide

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

Latest release

VAT

Withdrawn

Application Guide

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

Latest release

VAT

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

VAT (value-added tax)

EU Policy

Glossary

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

VBC

ERTMS

ERA Technical Document

Technical Document ERTMS Operational Principles and Rules ERA_ERTMS_OPE_AppA_5 / V 5.0 on 09.04.2019

VBC

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

VBC

ERTMS

Technical Document

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

VC

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

VCE

Freight

Glossary

Transport of dangerous goods. Risks Management Framework. Framework glossary v. 1.0/2018

VDE-PZI

International Standard

EU Technical Document

CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

VE

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