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
Wagon-kilometre	EU Policy	Glossary	Glossary for transport statistics - 6TH EDITION 2026	Latest release
Waiting Area	Persons with Reduced Mobility	Application Guide	Guide for the application of PRM TSI - application_guide - GUI/PRM TSI/2023 - vers. 2.0 of 08.12.2023
WAN	International Standard	EU Technical Document	CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025
Warming-up effect	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 10075-1:2017(en) Ergonomic principles related to mental workload — Part 1: General issues and concepts, terms and definitions	Latest release
Warning	ERTMS	Technical Document	ERTMS/ETCS - Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations - version : 4.0.0 - date 05/07/2023
Warning 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
Waste water disposal systems	Interoperability	Decision	Commission Decision of 30 November 2009 on the reference document referred to in Article 27(4) of Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community. (2009/965/EC)
Wastes	International Relations	Convention	Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)
Water supply system	Interoperability	Decision	Commission Decision of 30 November 2009 on the reference document referred to in Article 27(4) of Directive 2008/57/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the interoperability of the rail system within the Community. (2009/965/EC)
Waterway	EU Policy	Glossary	Eurostat Transport Glossary on web release November 2024
Waterway of maritime character	EU Policy	Glossary	Eurostat Transport Glossary on web release November 2024
Waybill	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
WCPFC	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
WD	International Standard	EU Technical Document	CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025
WECAFC	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
WECC	International Standard	EU Technical Document	CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025
Weekly noise exposure level (LEX,8h)	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	Directive	Directive 2003/10/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 February 2003 on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (noise)
Weigh in motion system	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
Weight	EU Policy	Regulation	Regulation (EU) 2018/643 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 April 2018 on rail transport statistics
WELAC	International Standard	EU Technical Document	CEN CENELEC ABBRAVIATION ACRONYM 2025

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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