- acceptable means of compliance
means non-binding opinions issued by the Agency to define ways of establishing compliance with the essential requirements;
- acceptable national means of compliance
means non-binding opinions issued by Member States to define ways of establishing compliance with national rules;
- accreditation
means accreditation as defined in point (10) of Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 765/2008;
- applicant
means a natural or legal person requesting an authorisation, be it a railway undertaking, an infrastructure manager or any other person or legal entity, such as a manufacturer, an owner or a keeper;
- area of use of a vehicle
means a network or networks within a Member State or a group of Member States in which a vehicle is intended to be used;
- authorised representative
means any natural or legal person established within the Union who has received a written mandate from a manufacturer or a contracting entity to act on behalf of that manufacturer or contracting entity in relation to specified tasks;
- basic parameter
means any regulatory, technical or operational condition which is critical to interoperability and is specified in the relevant TSIs;
- conformity assessment
means the process demonstrating whether specified requirements relating to a product, process, service, subsystem, person or body have been fulfilled;
- conformity assessment body
means a body that has been notified or designated to be responsible for conformity assessment activities, including calibration, testing, certification and inspection;
- contracting entity
means a public or private entity which orders the design and/or construction or the renewal or upgrading of a subsystem;
- design operating state
means the normal operating mode and the foreseeable degraded conditions (including wear) within the range and the conditions of use specified in the technical and maintenance files;
- entity in charge of maintenance
(‘ECM’) means an entity in charge of maintenance as defined in point (20) of Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2016/798;
- essential requirements
means all the conditions set out in Annex III which must be met by the Union rail system, the subsystems, and the interoperability constituents, including interfaces;
- European specification
means a specification which falls into one of the following categories:
- existing rail system
means the infrastructure composed of lines and fixed installations of the existing rail network as well as the vehicles of all categories and origins travelling on that infrastructure;
- harmonised standard
means a European standard as defined in point (c) of Article 2(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012;
- infrastructure manager
means an infrastructure manager as defined in point (2) of Article 3 of Directive 2012/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council;
- interoperability
means the ability of a rail system to allow the safe and uninterrupted movement of trains which accomplish the required levels of performance;
- interoperability constituents
means any elementary component, group of components, subassembly or complete assembly of equipment incorporated or intended to be incorporated into a subsystem, upon which the interoperability of the rail system depends directly or indirectly, including both tangible objects and intangible objects;
- keeper
means the natural or legal person that, being the owner of a vehicle or having the right to use it, exploits the vehicle as a means of transport and is registered as such in a vehicle register referred to in Article 47;
- light rail
means an urban and/or suburban rail transport system with a crashworthiness of C-III or C-IV (in accordance with EN 15227:2011) and a maximum strength of vehicle of 800 kN (longitudinal compressive force in coupling area);
- manufacturer
means any natural or legal person who manufactures a product in the form of interoperability constituents, subsystems or vehicles, or has it designed or manufactured, and markets it under his name or trademark;
- mobile subsystem
means the rolling stock subsystem and the on-board control-command and signalling subsystem;
- national accreditation body
means a national accreditation body as defined in point (11) of Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 765/2008;
- national rules
means all binding rules adopted in a Member State, irrespective of the body issuing them, which contain railway safety or technical requirements, other than those laid down by Union or international rules which are applicable within that Member State to railway undertakings, infrastructure managers or third parties;
- national safety authority
means a safety authority as defined in point (7) of Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2016/798;
- network
means the lines, stations, terminals, and all kinds of fixed equipment needed to ensure safe and continuous operation of the Union rail system;
- placing in service
means all the operations by which a subsystem is put into its operational service;
- placing on the market
means the first making available on the Union's market of an interoperability constituent, subsystem or vehicle ready to function in its design operating state;
- product
means a product obtained through a manufacturing process, including interoperability constituents and subsystems;
- project at an advanced stage of development
means any project the planning or construction stage of which has reached a point where a change in the technical specifications may compromise the viability of the project as planned;
- railway undertaking
means a railway undertaking as defined in point (1) of Article 3 of Directive 2012/34/EU, and any other public or private undertaking, the activity of which is to provide transport of goods and/or passengers by rail on the basis that the undertaking is to ensure traction;
- renewal
means any major substitution work on a subsystem or part of it which does not change the overall performance of the subsystem;
- series
means a number of identical vehicles of a design type;
- specific case
means any part of the rail system which needs special provisions in the TSIs, either temporary or permanent, because of geographical, topographical or urban environment constraints or those affecting compatibility with the existing system, in particular railway lines and networks isolated from the rest of the Union, the loading gauge, the track gauge or space between the tracks and vehicles strictly intended for local, regional or historical use, as well as vehicles originating from or destined for third countries;
- substitution in the framework of maintenance
means any replacement of components by parts of identical function and performance in the framework of preventive or corrective maintenance;
- subsystems
means the structural or functional parts of the Union rail system, as set out in Annex II;
- technical specification
means a document that prescribes technical requirements to be fulfilled by a product, subsystem, process or service;
- technical specification for interoperability
(TSI) means a specification adopted in accordance with this Directive by which each subsystem or part of a subsystem is covered in order to meet the essential requirements and ensure the interoperability of the Union rail system;
- tram-train
means a vehicle designed for combined use on both a light-rail infrastructure and a heavy-rail infrastructure;
- type
means a vehicle type defining the basic design characteristics of the vehicle as covered by a type or design examination certificate described in the relevant verification module;
- Union rail system
means the elements listed in Annex I;
- upgrading
means any major modification work on a subsystem or part of it which results in a change in the technical file accompanying the ‘EC’ declaration of verification, if that technical file exists, and which improves the overall performance of the subsystem;
- vehicle
means a railway vehicle suitable for circulation on wheels on railway lines, with or without traction;