With the new winter timetable, effective from Sunday 12 December, the Frecciarossa-Italo railway derby has restarted on the main section: Milan-Rome. The line that sees business customers move every day. After the period marked by Covid and the lockdowns, the service returns to run to connect the two main Italian cities in the shortest possible time. At the moment we are at 140 connections a day: 76 Frecciarossa against 64 Italo.
But with some interesting distinctions. We start from the top convoy of the Trenitalia fleet (FS Group). With the 2021-2022 winter timetable, there are four Frecciarossa non-stop (without intermediate stops) Milan-Rome, two departing in the morning, one from Rome and one from Milan, and two in the afternoon to return to the city at the end of the working day. In addition, 6 Frecciarossa more bring the connections between Milan and Rome to 76 per day, with more seats available thanks to the use of two coupled trains in the times of higher demand. Luigi Corradi, CEO of Trenitalia, says: «During the health emergency we tried to provide a service to as many passengers as possible, making the Frecce stop in several stations to help people move. Today the high speed is returning to stop as little as possible, on the Milan-Rome line we are returning under three hours of travel ».
Italo also thinks big and is a candidate to become the leader of this fundamental line for the whole country, increasing the offer and giving impetus to the restart of business travel. Of the 64 daily services, i.e. one every 20 minutes during peak hours, 32 are non-stop. It is interesting to note that Italo offers, on the entire national network, 116 daily trips: this means that the Milan-Rome route accounts for 55% of the daily offer of the private company. Furthermore, the last 4 Italo Evo trains entered the fleet on 12 December, thus bringing the total number of Italo trains in circulation on the Italian tracks to 51 (25 Agv and 26 Pendolini Evo).
Says Giambattista La Rocca, CEO of Italo: «With high speed, traveling between Rome and Milan, even during the day, has become a custom; despite the recent complicated period due to the pandemic, it is a matter of pride for us to launch such an offer with the highest standards of safety, quality and service ». Meanwhile, the Frecciarossa 1000 makes its debut in France (Milan-Paris line) in the sign of sold out: tickets for the first 4 trains, starting from 29 euros up to a maximum of 165 euros depending on the travel class, have literally gone to steals. After the subway of Italy, Trenitalia aims to create the subway of Europe, again with the Frecciarossa.