Trenitalia is the primary train operator in Italy. A subsidiary of
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. ( "Italian Railways of the State"; previously only Ferrovie dello Stato, hence the abbreviation FS) is Italy's national state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estat ...
, itself owned by the
Italian government
The government of Italy is in the form of a democratic republic, and was established by a constitution in 1948. It consists of legislative, executive, and judicial subdivisions, as well as a Head of State, or President.
The Italian Constituti ...
, the company was established in 2000 following a
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
The Italian government formed Trenitalia to comply with European regulations. The
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
's
First Railway Directive
The Single European Railway Directive 2012''2012/34/EUis an EU Directive that regulates railway networks in European Union law. This recast the "First Railway Directive" or "Package" from 1991, and allows open access operations on railway lines ...
from 1991 (91/440/EC) required separation of accounting between entities which manage the rail infrastructure and entities which provide the actual rail transportation. On 1 June 2000, therefore, Italy created Trenitalia as the primary rail transportation company and on 1 July 2001 established
Rete Ferroviaria Italiana
Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) is the Italian railway infrastructure manager, subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), a state-owned holding company. RFI is the owner of Italy's railway network, it provides signalling, maintenance and other se ...
(RFI) as the company overseeing the rail network. However, the separation was only formal, since both are subsidiaries of the
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. ( "Italian Railways of the State"; previously only Ferrovie dello Stato, hence the abbreviation FS) is Italy's national state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estat ...
holding and are owned wholly by the government. Trenitalia operated freight rail services under the Trenitalia Cargo brand until 2017, when
Mercitalia
Mercitalia (also known as Mercitalia Rail) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Italian state railway (FSI) system that operates freight transport and logistics services both within Italy and across Europe.
Mercitalia was founded in January 2016, ...
took over state-owned freight rail and logistics operations.
As of July 2014,
Adria Ferries
Adria is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Rovigo in the Veneto region of northern Italy, situated between the mouths of the rivers Adige and Po. The remains of the Etruscan city of Atria or Hatria are to be found below the modern city, ...
has a partnership with Trenitalia wherein tickets can be booked at any train station for onward journey to
Durrës
Durrës ( , ; sq-definite, Durrësi) is the second most populous city of the Republic of Albania and seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. It is located on a flat plain along the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast between the mouths of ...
, at a steeply discounted price with respect to both tickets separately purchased. This is for connections either in Ancona or in Trieste, and continues the historical link between the Via Appia Traiana and the
Via Egnatia
The Via Egnatia was a road constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. It crossed Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thracia, running through territory that is now part of modern Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey as a continu ...
Trenitalia offers national rail transport in Italy and international connections to
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, and Switzerland. The company operates both regional and long-distance trains.
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 of new track on the Turin-Milan-Bologna-Rome-Naples-Salerno route that allow trains to reach speeds over , although current maximum commercial speed is . There are currently four generations of
ElettroTreno
ETR (Italian: ''Elettro Treno Rapido'', "Rapid Electric Train") is a series of Italian high-speed trains.
Tilting EMU trains
* ETR 401
* ETR 450
*ETR 460
*ETR 470
* ETR 480
* ETR 600/610 (New Pendolino)
These models are often referred as Pendoli ...
in service on the network.
Trenitalia ordered 50 high speed trainsets in 2010.
The new trains are the
ETR 1000
The Frecciarossa 1000, is a high-speed train operated by Italian state railway operator Trenitalia. It was co-developed as a joint venture between Italian rail manufacturer Hitachi Rail Italy (initially AnsaldoBreda) and multinational conglomera ...
series.
They are long, non-articulated trains, with distributed traction, and capable of up to operation, although current service plans are limited to .
Mauro Moretti
Mauro Moretti (born 29 October 1953) is an Italian executive and former CEO and general manager of Leonardo S.p.A. (formerly Finmeccanica), from May 2014 to May 2017.
He is also president of the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of ...
, 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.
International passenger trains
*TILO: 50% owned by
Trenord
Trenord is a railway company which is responsible for the operation of regional passenger trains in Lombardy. The company was established by the two main railway companies in Lombardy, Trenitalia and Ferrovie Nord Milano (FNM), to manage train ope ...
(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
Trenitalia France is an open-access train operator running international services between France and Italy. It was originally established under the ''Thello'' brand in October 2011.
On 11 December 2011, Thello ran its first night service, having ...
: was a private railway service formed as a
joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...
with
Transdev
Transdev, formerly Veolia Transdev, is a French-based international private-sector company which operates public transport. It has operations in 17 countries and territories as of November 2020.
History
The group was formed by the merger of ...
. In September 2016, Trenitalia bought out Transdev's 33% shareholding. It operated night trains between Paris
Gare de Lyon
The Gare de Lyon, officially Paris-Gare-de-Lyon, is one of the six large mainline railway stations in Paris, France. It handles about 148.1 million passengers annually according to the estimates of the SNCF in 2018, with SNCF railways and RER ...
and
Venezia Santa Lucia railway station
Venezia Santa Lucia ( it, Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia) is the central station of Venice in the north-east of Italy. It is a terminus and located at the northern edge of Venice's historic city ( it, Centro storico).
The station is one of Ven ...
and daytime trains between
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
and
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
via
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...
and
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard dialect, Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agg ...
. In 2020, Thello overnight services between Paris and Venice were suspended in March 2020 due to
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, 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
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
service between Paris and Milan, using
Frecciarossa 1000
The Frecciarossa 1000, is a high-speed train operated by Italian state railway operator Trenitalia. It was co-developed as a joint venture between Italian rail manufacturer Hitachi Rail Italy (initially AnsaldoBreda) and multinational conglome ...
trains. Two trains a day run from
Gare de Lyon
The Gare de Lyon, officially Paris-Gare-de-Lyon, is one of the six large mainline railway stations in Paris, France. It handles about 148.1 million passengers annually according to the estimates of the SNCF in 2018, with SNCF railways and RER ...
and
Milano Centrale
Milano Centrale ( it, Stazione Milano Centrale) is the main railway station of the city of Milan, Italy, and is the largest railway station in Europe by volume. The station is a terminus and located at the northern end of central Milan. It was o ...
Modane
Modane (; ) is a commune in the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France.
The commune is in the Maurienne Valley, and it also belongs to the Vanoise National Park. It was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia unti ...
Iryo
Iryo is a brand of Intermodalidad de Levante S.A., a private high-speed rail operator in Spain. The company is jointly owned by Trenitalia, Air Nostrum, and the infrastructure investment fund Globalvia.
Trains began operating on the Madrid–Bar ...
, a high-speed operator in Spain owned by Trenitalia and
Air Nostrum
Air Nostrum, legally incorporated as ''Air Nostrum Líneas Aéreas del Mediterráneo, S.A.'', is a Spanish regional airline based in Valencia.
It currently operates as a franchisee of Iberia as Iberia Regional and an affiliate member of the On ...
, 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
Italo - Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori ( it, New Travellers Transport) is an Italian open-access train operating company operating in the field of high-speed rail transport.
Commencing services in early 2012, it became Europe's first private open a ...
.
Operations in the United Kingdom
In January 2017, Trenitalia won a bid from the Department for Transport (DfT) to run train operating company
National Express
National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...
which has a contract to operate the
Essex Thameside
Essex Thameside is a railway franchise for the provision of passenger services on the London, Tilbury and Southend line in east London and south Essex. It was formed on 26 May 1996, following the privatisation of British Rail and the franchise wa ...
franchise until November 2029. In the same month it took a 30% stake in a joint venture with
FirstGroup
FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.East Midlands Railway and
West Coast Partnership
The West Coast Partnership (WCP) is a railway franchise in the United Kingdom for passenger trains on the West Coast Main Line (WCML)(and branches thereof), between London Euston, the West Midlands, Shropshire, North Wales, Liverpool, Manchest ...
South Eastern franchise
The South Eastern franchise, also known as the Integrated Kent franchise, is a railway franchise for the provision of passenger services between London and Kent in South East England.
History
The South Eastern franchise was formed as a shadow ...
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
Avanti West Coast is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by FirstGroup (70%) and Trenitalia (30%) that operates the West Coast Partnership franchise.
During November 2016, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced the Inter ...
ran its first train between London and Manchester on 8 December.
Tickets
Tickets can be bought online, in the stations or from approximately 4,000
travel agencies
A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destinatio ...
including those outside Italy. It is common for people to buy tickets from the official website after looking up schedules.
Since long-distance trains, unlike the regional trains, usually require a reservation, it is advantageous to buy tickets in advance. This also gives buyers access to a variety of discount schemes offered by Trenitalia. All "premium" long-distance trains generally share the same discount schemes, even though their fares may differ. Unlike mini fares, which existed before 2012 and required two days of notice, all tickets may be purchased at the last minute if they are still available. All large rail stations have staffed ticket windows and self-service
ticket machine
A ticket machine, also known as a ticket vending machine (TVM), is a vending machine that produces paper or electronic tickets, or recharges a stored-value card or smart card or the user's mobile wallet, typically on a smartphone. For instanc ...
s for this purpose. Such machines, which either say "Trenitalia" or "Rete Regionale" ("regional network"), differ in the types of payment accepted.
Controversies
Racism
In early 2012, Trenitalia released a web advertisement to promote its change from two classes of train compartments into four classes. Passengers travelling by the fourth class were not permitted to use the on-board cafeteria or enter the carriages reserved for the other three classes. This change alone reportedly caused controversy, but more followed with the release of the accompanying web advertisement. The web advertisement showed only white people seated in the upper three classes, as well as a black family in the fourth.
Italian online media observed this and branded the advertisement as "grotesque". Other complaints of racial discrimination followed in UK newspapers, social media and online. Trenitalia withdrew the web commercial and quickly substituted it following the allegations of racism. Since 13 January 2012 the cafeteria is accessible also for passengers of lower classes.
Trains
Currently, there are several series of high-speed trains that run the Trenitalia service:
*
ETR 460
The ETR 460 is an electric multiple unit (EMU) tilting train produced by FIAT Ferroviaria (now Alstom Ferroviaria) since 1993. It is also known as the Pendolino after the family of trains from which it comes.
The ETR 460 is a development of the ...
ETR 470
ETR 470 (''ElettroTreno 470'') is a high-speed tilting electric multiple unit, which is now only operated by the Greek-Italian private company, Hellenic Train. Introduced in September 1996, nine units were built for the Italo-Swiss firm Cisa ...
, manufactured by FIAT Ferroviaria
*
ETR 480
The ETR 480 is a tilting Electric Multiple Unit built by Fiat Ferroviaria (now Alstom Ferroviaria) since 1993, It is also known as Pendolino. It was developed from the first new-generation Pendolino, the ETR 460. The main difference between ETR ...
, manufactured by FIAT Ferroviaria
*
ETR 500
ETR 500 ('' Elettro Treno Rapido 500'') is a family of Italian high-speed trains built by AnsaldoBreda and introduced in 1993.
Designed under the aegis of the Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), it is now operated by Trenitalia on RFI tracks.
History
...
, manufactured by Alstom, Bombardier and AnsaldoBreda
* ETR 600, manufactured by
Alstom Ferroviaria
Alstom Ferroviaria S.p.A., former Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A., is the Italian division of Alstom. Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A. was the rail division of automobile manufacturer Fiat. It was founded in 1880 as Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano.
*
ETR 610 ETR may refer to:
* East Turkestan Republic (disambiguation); first and second movements
* Express Toll Route, in Canada; Ontario Highway 407
* Entergy Corporation; NYSE stock symbol
* Edolo language; ISO language code
* Etravirine, a drug used to s ...
, manufactured by Alstom Ferroviaria
* ETR 700, manufactured by AnsaldoBreda
*
ETR 1000
The Frecciarossa 1000, is a high-speed train operated by Italian state railway operator Trenitalia. It was co-developed as a joint venture between Italian rail manufacturer Hitachi Rail Italy (initially AnsaldoBreda) and multinational conglomera ...
, manufactured by AnsaldoBreda (since 2015
Hitachi Rail Italy
Hitachi Rail Italy S.p.A. is a multinational rolling stock manufacturer company based in Pistoia, Italy. Formerly AnsaldoBreda S.p.A., a subsidiary of state-owned Finmeccanica, the company was sold in 2015 to Hitachi Rail of Japan. After the ...
)
See also
*
Rail transport in Italy
The Italian railway system is one of the most important parts of the infrastructure of Italy, with a total length of of which active lines are 16,723 km. The network has recently grown with the construction of the new high-speed rail netw ...