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.

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Latest release: 1 April 2025

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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
Allocating reservation system	Telematics Applications for Passenger	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.52 Reservation application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013
Allocation	International Relations	Agreement	Agreement between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation on the Carriage of Goods and Passengers by Rail and Road
Allocation	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)
Allocation body	International Relations	Agreement	Agreement between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation on the Carriage of Goods and Passengers by Rail and Road
Allocation body	Telematics Applications for Freight	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
Allocation of certificates for messages	Telematics Applications for Passenger	Application Guide	TAP TSI Annex B.56 RU/IM Communication application_guide - version 1.0 of 06/12/2013
Altener	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
Alternative fuel	EU Policy	Glossary	Eurostat Transport Glossary on web
Alternative fuel	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
Alternative fuels	International Relations	Regulation	Regulation (EU) 2021/1153 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2021 establishing the Connecting Europe Facility and repealing Regulations (EU) No 1316/2013 and (EU) No 283/2014
Alternative fuels	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
Alternative fuels	SERA_EU Transport	Directive	Council Directive 96/53/EC of 25 July 1996 laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorized dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorized weights in international traffic
Alternative offer	RNE Glossary	Glossary	RNE Glossary - NS_CID_Glossary_2023
Alternative route	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)
Alternatively fuelled vehicle	SERA_EU Transport	Directive	Council Directive 96/53/EC of 25 July 1996 laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorized dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorized weights in international traffic
Altitude	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)
AM	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
Amending letter	EU Policy	Glossary	EU budget glossary - A list of the most common words and useful terms concerning the EU budget
ANC	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
Ancillary service	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)

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
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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

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