Trenitalia - Trenitalia Passenger Transport - B
Trenitalia - B
Trenitalia Passenger Transport
Trenitalia offers national rail transport in Italy and international connections to Austria, France, Germany, and Switzerland. The company operates both regional and long-distance trains.
Trenitalia Regional Trains
Regional trains travel within an Italian region or between neighboring Italian regions, and are subsidized by local government at the regional level by "Contratto di servizio". Regional trains stop at more stations than other long-distance trains, and some stop at all stations. Regionale veloce (fast regional train) are trains stopping at about half of stations.
There are no reservations for regional trains, and for this reason, there is no price advantage to acquiring regional tickets in advance online. Once bought, tickets for regional trains have to be validated at the station before departure. "Validation" in this case means placing a date/time stamp on the ticket by inserting into a (usually) green and white machine either in the station or along the track. This is because regional tickets are not for a particular date or time but are valid for a period (two months for tickets bought before 1 August 2016).
The date/time stamp is to show that the ticket cannot be reused. From 1 August 2016, tickets are valid for the 24 hours chosen by online buyers; the date of use can be changed until the previous 24 hours of the later date. The date of use can be anticipated until the 24 hours following this adjusting operation. The omission about the period of use at paper shops will involve a one-way daily ticket issue. This change aims to hinder fare evasion.
There are no discount schemes available for non-residents of Italy on regional trains.
Long-Distance Trains and High-Speed Trains
Long-distance trains are of mainly of two types: the Frecce (arrows) and Intercity trains.
- Intercity trains also serve medium-sized cities besides the big cities, thus are generally slower but are cheaper than the Frecce.
- Night trains (Intercity night) operate mainly between north and south of Italy and between Italy and its neighbouring countries and are comparable to Intercity level.
- High-speed rail (managed by RFI) service in Italy commenced in 2008 with about 1,000 km (620 mi) of new track on the Turin-Milan-Bologna-Rome-Naples-Salerno route that allow trains to reach speeds over 360 km/h (220 mph), although current maximum commercial speed is 300 km/h (190 mph). There are currently four generations of ElettroTreno in service on the network.
- Trenitalia ordered 50 high speed trainsets in 2010. The new trains are the ETR 1000 series. They are 200 metres (660 ft) long, non-articulated trains, with distributed traction, and capable of up to 400 km/h (250 mph) operation, although current service plans are limited to 360 km/h (220 mph). Mauro Moretti, at the time chief executive of FS group, said FS was considering long-distance international services to France, Germany, or even Spain and the United Kingdom. The trains entered service on the Italian high-speed network in 2015.
Trenitalia International Passenger Trains
- TILO: 50% owned by Trenord (formerly these shares were owned by Trenitalia), 50% owned by the Swiss Federal Railways. The company runs the regional services between Italy and Switzerland. The staff all change at the border and are either FS Trenitalia or SBB CFF FFS. Trenitalia operates all fast trains to/from Switzerland in the Italian portion of the route.
- Thello: was a private railway service formed as a joint venture with Transdev. In September 2016, Trenitalia bought out Transdev's 33% shareholding.
- It operated night trains between Paris Gare de Lyon and Venezia Santa Lucia railway station and daytime trains between Milan and Marseille via Genoa and Nice. In 2020, Thello overnight services between Paris and Venice were suspended in March 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic, with the daytime train cut back to run between Nice and Milan. In June 2021, all services were withdrawn, with Trenitalia announcing a focus on high speed services between the two countries following the pandemic. The withdrawal was criticised, given the reduction in services between Nice and Milan. Thello was renamed Trenitalia France in October 2021. In December 2021, Trenitalia France launched an open-access service between Paris and Milan, using Frecciarossa 1000 trains. Two trains a day run from Gare de Lyon and Milano Centrale in each direction with intermediate stops at Lyon Part-Dieu, Chambéry-Challes-les-Eaux and Modane in France and Torino Porta Susa in Italy.
- Iryo, a high-speed operator in Spain owned by Trenitalia and Air Nostrum, as part of the ILSA consortium. ILSA was selected by ADIF, the company that runs Spanish rail infrastructure, as the first private operator to be granted access to the Spanish rail market. The Trenitalia consortium will run high-speed services on the Madrid-Barcelona, Madrid-Valencia/Alicante and Madrid-Malaga/Seville lines, branded as IRYO. Services will start running in January 2022. The service contract will have a duration of 10 years. The ILSA consortium will offer 32 daily links with a fleet of 23 trains.
- Artésia was a company jointly owned by Trenitalia and SNCF, operating trains between France and Italy. It ceased operating in November 2011 after SNCF purchased a stake in Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori.
Trenitalia Operations in the United Kingdom
In January 2017, Trenitalia won a bid from the Department for Transport (DfT) to run train operating company c2c from National Express which has a contract to operate the Essex Thameside franchise until November 2029. In the same month it took a 30% stake in a joint venture with FirstGroup, named First Trenitalia, that was later shortlisted to bid for the East Midlands Railway and West Coast Partnership franchises. It was also shortlisted to bid for the South Eastern franchise in its own right.
In August 2017 Trenitalia withdrew from the South Eastern contest, citing a desire to concentrate its resources on its bid for the West Coast Partnership. Likewise in April 2018, along with FirstGroup, it withdrew from the East Midlands contest citing the same reason.
In August 2019, the First Trenitalia consortium was awarded the West Coast Partnership contract. Avanti West Coast ran its first train between London and Manchester on 8 December.
Trenitalia Overview
Trenitalia Type: Partly State-owned subsidiary
Trenitalia Industry: Rail transport
Trenitalia Founded: 2000
Trenitalia Headquarters: Rome, Italy
Trenitalia Key People: Michele Pompeo Meta (Chairman) and Luigi Corradi (CEO)
Trenitalia Products: Transport
Trenitalia Revenue Increase: €5.3 billion (2017)
Trenitalia Net Income: Increase €276.2 million (2017)
Trenitalia Owner: Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane
Trenitalia Number of Employees: Decrease 27,607 (2017)