DEFINITIONS POLICY, IEEE RTVISC
A policy
statement reflecting the committee's adopted positions on definitions is given
below:
It is committee policy to use IEEE Dictionary definitions if at all possible. Further, once any definition has been balloted and accepted for use in any standard sponsored by the IEEE Rail Transit Vehicle Interface Standards Committee it shall be binding for all other standards sponsored by the committee unless it can be shown to be clearly inappropriate.
If neither the IEEE Dictionary nor a RTVISC balloted standard provides a suitable definition, then the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Lexicon should be consulted for a suitable definition..
Next, standards sponsored by the ASME Rail Transit Standards Committee should be consulted. Definitions which have been balloted and accepted for any standard sponsored by the ASME Rail Transit Standards Committee shall be also binding for all IEEE RTVISC standards unless there is a different existing IEEE definition or they can be shown to be clearly inapplicable.
If none of these sources produce a suitable definition, the TRB Glossary should be consulted . It should be noted that ASME and TRB Glossary definitions are not presently IEEE definitions. Thus, they should be provided in the definitions section of the IEEE standard so they can be balloted and adopted as an IEEE definition.
Only when all of the above approaches has failed should a working group coin its own original definition. Since it is intended that all working groups of both IEEE RTVISC and ASME RTSC use common definitions, Working group chairs should be careful when reviewing standards prepared by other working groups, to be sure the other group's definitions will be suitable for their standard also.
Paul Jamieson chairs
the Definitions working group for both the IEEE RTVISC and the ASME RTSC and
maintains a database with all definitions which can be downloaded from our
website at www.tsd.org/rsc.
References:
IEEE
Dictionary is available at the website http://standards.ieee.org/resources/glance.html
Definitions
adopted by the IEEE Rail Transit Vehicle Interfaces Standards Committee but not
yet in the IEEE dictionary are kept at our committee website at www.tsd.org/rsc
"Safety
Codes and Standards Lexicon",
January 2002, American Society of Mechanical Engineers
"Urban
Public Transportation Glossary", Transportation
Research Board, National Research Council, Benita H. Gray, Editor, 1989