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
Work arising	Entity in Charge of Maintenance	Application Guide	ISO 9879:2024(en) Railway applications — Rolling stock maintenance — Vocabulary	Latest release
Work environment	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Work environment	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 9000:2015(en) Quality management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary	Latest release
Work equipment	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Work fatigue	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Work organisation	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Work process	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Work strain	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Work system	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Work task	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Worker	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 6385:2016 Ergonomics principles in the design of work systems	Latest release
Worker	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	ISO	ISO 45001:2018(en) Occupational health and safety management systems — Requirements with guidance for use	Latest release
Working days	EU Policy	Regulation	Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 1182/71 of the Council of 3 June 1971 determining the rules applicable to periods, dates and time limits
Working Group (WG)	Infrastructure	Glossary	European Rail Infrastructure Managers
Working Party (WP)	Infrastructure	Glossary	European Rail Infrastructure Managers
Working pressure	International Relations	Convention	Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)
Working range of pantographs	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)
Working time	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	Directive	Council Directive 2005/47/EC of 18 July 2005 on the Agreement between the Community of European Railways (CER) and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) on certain aspects of the working conditions of mobile workers engaged in interoperable cross-border services in the railway sector Agreement concluded by the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) and the Community of European Railways (CER) on certain aspects of the working conditions of mobile workers engaged in interoperable cross-border services
Working time	SMS Safety Culture Human and Organisational Factor	Directive	Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time
Working timetable	SERA_EU Transport	Directive	Directive 2012/34/EU of the Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 establishing a single European railway area (recast)

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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COTIF Document
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ERA Technical Document
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ISO
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