“Accident” means an unwanted or unintended sudden event or a specific chain of such events which have harmful consequences; accidents are divided into the following categories: collisions, derailments, level-crossing accidents, accidents to persons caused by rolling stock in motion, fires and others.

“Agency” means the European Railway Agency, that is to say, the Community agency for railway safety and interoperability established by the aforementioned Regulation (EC) No 881/2004.

“Common safety indicators” (“CSIs”) means the common safety indicators referred to in Annex 2 to this Regulation.

“Common safety methods” (“CSMs”) means the methods to be developed by the Agency to describe how safety levels and achievement of safety targets and compliance with other safety requirements are assessed.

“Common safety targets” (“CSTs”) means the safety levels, to be drawn up by the Agency, that must at least be reached by different parts of the rail system (such as the high speed rail system and long railway tunnels) and by the system as a whole, expressed in risk acceptance criteria.

“Common Section” means that part of the Fixed Link which is normally used by all categories of trains for the delivery of the services described in Article 1 of the Intergovernmental Commission Regulation of 25 October 2005 concerning the use of the Channel Tunnel by international groupings or railway undertakings.

“Concession” has the meaning given in Article 1 of the Treaty.

“Concessionaires” has the meaning given in Article 1 of the Treaty.

“Fixed Link” means the Channel Fixed Link as defined in Article 1.2 of the Treaty.

“Incident” means any occurrence, other than accident or serious accident, associated with the operation of trains and affecting the safety of operations.

“Infrastructure manager” means any body or undertaking that is responsible in particular for establishing and maintaining railway infrastructure, or a part thereof, as defined in Article 3 of Directive 91/440/EEC. The Concessionaires are the infrastructure manager for the Fixed Link, in accordance with the Treaty, and are responsible also for the management of infrastructure control and safety systems.

“Intergovernmental Commission” (“Intergovernmental Commission">IGC”) means the Intergovernmental Commission, established by Article 10 of the Treaty to supervise, in the name and on behalf of the governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of the French Republic, all matters concerning the construction and operation of the Fixed Link.

“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 high-speed or conventional rail system depends either directly or indirectly, as defined in Directives 96/48/EC and 2001/16/EC. The concept of a “constituent” covers both tangible objects and intangible objects such as software.

“Investigation” means a process conducted for the purpose of accident and incident prevention which includes the gathering and analysis of information, the drawing of conclusions, including the determination of causes and, when appropriate, the making of safety recommendations.

“Notified bodies” means the bodies which are responsible for assessing the conformity or suitability for use of the interoperability constituents or for appraising the EC procedure for verification of the sub-systems, as defined in Directives 96/48/EC (interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system) and 2001/16/EC (interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system).

“Part A certificate” means safety certification confirming acceptance of a railway undertaking’s safety management system, issued by the safety authority in the Member State where that railway undertaking first established its operations.

“Part B certificate” means safety certification issued to railway undertakings by the Intergovernmental Commission under this Regulation and valid solely in respect of their operations on the Common Section.

“Railway undertaking” means any railway undertaking as defined in Directive 2001/14/EC 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 must provide traction; this also includes undertakings which provide traction only. However, it does not include the Concessionaires, whose transport operations are limited to the provision of shuttle services for road vehicles through the Channel Tunnel.

“Safety Authority” means the body appointed by France and the United Kingdom to perform the tasks relating to the safety of the Fixed Link in accordance with Article 3.g and Article 16 of Directive 2004/49/EC in order to ensure a unified safety regime for the specific cross-border infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel.

“Safety management system” (“SMS”) means the organisation and provisions drawn up by an infrastructure manager or a railway undertaking to ensure the safe management of its activities.

“Serious accident” means any train collision or derailment resulting in at least one fatality or serious injury to at least five persons, or extensive damage to rolling stock, to the infrastructure, or to the environment, and any other similar accident having an obvious impact on the regulation or the management of railway safety; “extensive damage” means damage which may be immediately assessed by the competent investigating body at a total of at least 2 million euro.

“Technical specifications for interoperability” (“TSI”) means the specifications by which each subsystem or part of a subsystem is covered in order to meet the essential requirements and ensure the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed and conventional rail systems as defined in Directives 96/48/EC and 2001/16/EC.

“Treaty” means the Treaty between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the French Republic concerning the construction and operation by private concessionaires of a cross-channel fixed link, signed at Canterbury on 12th February 1986.

“Unified safety rules” means the safety rules as notified to the European Commission which apply to the Fixed Link and describe the safety requirements to be observed in the design, maintenance and operation of the railway system. The objective of these rules is to contribute to the overall level of safety.