Trenitalia, the passenger transport company of the FS Group, is about to land on the French high-speed market, after opening up to competition imposed by the IV European railway package aimed at creating a single European railway area.
According to the latest rumors, the start of the service, along the Milan Central-Turin-Lyon-Paris Gare de Lyon line, should start on the weekend before Christmas: Saturday 18 December 2021 (at the latest Sunday 19). The official announcement is subject to the latest authorizations issued by the French authorities, expected in the coming days.
The Frecciarossa 1000 in Paris
It is the first time that a foreign railway company will compete with the monopolist Sncf (the French state company) on the domestic market and in France there is great anticipation and curiosity for the arrival of Italian trains. The train that will challenge the TGV is naturally the flagship train of the FS fleet: the Frecciarossa 1000 built by Hitachi and Bombardier Transportation, the latter becoming part of the Alstom group. The Frecciarossa 1000 is an authentically European train, because it is designed to circulate in 7 different countries. In addition to France, in the course of 2022, the Frecciarossa will also enter service in Spain, where it is already carrying out trial tests, going to challenge, in addition to the Iberian state company Renfe, again the French of Sncf.
Trenitalia will start the service in France with two pairs of trains per day: departures from Milan and Paris in the early morning and return in the mid-afternoon. Technically, the Frecciarossa 1000 assigned by the FS to France will be five. The rates are still unknown, but it can already be said with certainty that they will not be low cost rates, such as those offered for example by Ouigo, the low cost Tgv of Sncf, which provides Paris-Milan connections starting from 10 euros. Rates will be commensurate with the quality of the service, which Trenitalia France intends to guarantee on high standards. The ticket sales system will be based mainly on the web and app. Like any new service, the departure goal is to fill the trains for at least half of the seats, or to carry around a thousand passengers a day (each Frecciarossa has a maximum capacity of 480 passengers). Since Trenitalia France is in fact a start-up, the service can be increased based on the trend in demand.
Air connections on short routes soon banned in France
Trenitalia’s entry into the French high-speed market is comparable to Italo’s entry into the Italian high-speed market, which took place in 2012. Trenitalia’s goal is not simply to challenge Sncf on its own field, but to compete actively to the development of the railway market in France. That is, to push many people to the train who today do not use this means of transport. Exactly as it happened in Italy, where the model based on the double railway operator, Trenitalia and Italo, has widened the boundaries of the market and has put in crisis, for example, the Rome-Milan air connection, for years the classic hen that lays eggs. gold of Alitalia. Among other things, in France from March 2022 all internal flights of less than 2 hours will be prohibited by law. A measure desired by President Macron to promote the sustainability of transport and which undoubtedly favors the development of the train on the domestic market.
Trenitalia is thinking of further expansion abroad
The arrival of the Frecciarossa in Paris, however, will not be the end of the story, but a new beginning. As it turns out, Trenitalia is already thinking about the next steps. The plans could include two further objectives: growth on the transalpine domestic market, where the Paris-Bordeaux and Paris-Marseille lines are considered interesting, but also further expansion in Europe, towards Brussels (Belgium) and, in the future, also Amsterdam (Holland), to exploit the technological advantages offered by the Frecciarossa 1000 and its versatility. Returning to the new fast connection between Milan and Paris, a further difference between Trenitalia and Sncf concerns the line: between Milan Central and Turin, the Frecciarossa will run on the high-speed tracks, while French trains, once they enter Italy, are routed on the conventional line and reach their destination in Milan Porta Garibaldi. Consequently, Trenitalia’s service will be faster (at least on paper) than the French one.