ERA Railway Terminology Collection

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.

Click here for more information

Latest update: 1 May 2025

Download the full Terminology

Filter by context

Filter by document type

Filter by latest release

Sort by

Items per page

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
Discharge	EU Policy	Glossary	EU budget glossary - A list of the most common words and useful terms concerning the EU budget
Discharge pressure	International Relations	Convention	Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) Appendix C – Regulations concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (RID)
Disconnect (a coach (group))	Telematics Applications for Passenger	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.50 Timetable application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013
Discrimination on the basis of disability	Persons with Reduced Mobility	Decision	Council Decision of 26 November 2009 concerning the conclusion, by the European Community, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Dispatcher	RNE Glossary	Glossary	RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2023
Display	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
Dispute resolution system	RNE Glossary	Glossary	RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2023
Disruption	RNE Glossary	Glossary	RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2023
Dissemination	EU Policy	Regulation	Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1101/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community Statistics, and Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom establishing a Committee on the Statistical Programmes of the European Communities
Distance between signboard and phase separation ending	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
Distance between track centres	Infrastructure	TSI	Commission Regulation (EU) No 1299/2014 of 18 November 2014 on the technical specifications for interoperability relating to the ‘infrastructure’ subsystem of the rail system in the European Union
Distribution channel	Telematics Applications for Passenger	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.50 Timetable application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013
Distribution channel	Telematics Applications for Passenger	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.51 Tariff application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013
Distribution channel	Telematics Applications for Passenger	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.52 Reservation application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013
Distribution system operator	Energy	Regulation	Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 September 2023 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure, and repealing Directive 2014/94/EU
Distributor	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
Distributor	Conformity Assessment	Decision	Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on a common framework for the marketing of products, and repealing Council Decision 93/465/EEC
Distributor	ERTMS	Directive	Directive 2014/53/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to the making available on the market of radio equipment and repealing Directive 1999/5/EC
Distributor	Conformity Assessment	Regulation	Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 339/93
Distributor	Telematics Applications for Passenger	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.51 Tariff application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013

Certification Scheme
Common Safety Method
Conformity Assessment
Control-Command and Signalling
Data Protection
Energy
Entity in Charge of Maintenance
ERTMS
EU Policy
Freight
Human and Organisational Factor
Infrastructure
International Relations
International Standard
Interoperability
Noise
Operation
Persons with Reduced Mobility
Railway Tunnels
Registers
Regulation
RNE Glossary
Safety / SSC-SA
Sectorial Scheme
Security
SERA_EU Transport
Telematics Applications for Freight
Telematics Applications for Passenger
Vehicles / VA
Withdrawn

Agreement
Application Guide
Certification Scheme
CIT Document
Convention
COTIF Document
Council Recommendation
Decision
Directive
ERA Technical Document
EU Technical Document
Glossary
Guide
International Agreement
ISO
Manual
Recommendation
Regulation
Sectorial Scheme
Technical Document
TSI
Website