SNCF Voyageurs will open domestic connections in Italy in 2026

The railway company plans to reach 15% market share in Italy by 2030.

SNCF Voyageurs announced on Wednesday June 12 its intention to establish itself in Italy from 2026, with the opening of several high-speed domestic connections. The railway company plans to reach 15% market share in Italy by 2030. It will eventually offer nine round trips per day between Turin, Milan, Rome and Naples and four round trips between Turin and Venice, which it will operate with 15 trainsets of the new TGV M, the first deliveries of which are planned for the second half of 2025. The French company will also serve Brescia, Verona, Padua, Bologna and Florence.

It will also continue its daily service between Paris, Turin and Milan, reduced to only one round trip per day, part of which is by bus, since the landslide in the Maurienne valley which cut the rail link last August. It is not expected to reopen before November.

The SNCF rail offer in Italy will be progressive, as was the case in Spain. SNCF was established there in 2021 and should have deployed its entire offering there by the end of 2024. In Spain, the French company managed to conquer 20% of the market share on the high-speed lines thanks to its Ouigo offer.

“We have been present in Europe for several decades, in nine countries”, recalled the CEO of SNCF Voyageurs, Christophe Fanichet, during a meeting with the press. In most of them, apart from Spain and soon Italy, the SNCF cooperates with local companies, and on cross-border lines. In Italy, SNCF Voyageurs will compete with the national company Trenitalia, which holds around two-thirds of the high-speed market share, and NTV, which belongs to the Italian-Swiss shipowner MSC and runs its trains under the Italo brand. .