High-speed rail in Italy consists of two lines connecting most of the country's major cities. The first line connects Turin to Salerno via Milan, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples, the second runs from Turin to Venice via Milan and Verona, and is under construction in parts. Trains are operated with a top speed of .
Passenger service is provided by Trenitalia and, since April 2012, by NTV, the world's first private open-access operator of high-speed rail to compete with a state-owned monopoly. 25 million passengers traveled on the network in 2011. In 2015, ridership increased to 55 million for Trenitalia and 9.1 million for NTV, for a combined 64 million passengers.
History
The first high-speed rail route in Italy, the Direttissima, opened in 1977, connecting Rome with Florence. The top speed on the line was , giving an end-to-end journey time of about 90 minutes with an average speed of . This line used a 3 kV DC supply.
High-speed service was introduced on the Rome-Milan line in 1988–89 with the ETR 450 Pendolino train, with a top speed of and cutting travel times from about 5 hours to 4. The prototype train ETR X 500 was the first Italian train to reach on the Direttissima on 25 May 1989.
The Italian high-speed rail projects suffered from a number of cost overruns and delays. Corruption and unethical behaviour played a key role.
In November 2018, the first high-speed freight rail in the world commenced service in Italy. The ETR 500 Mercitalia Fast train carries freight between Caserta and Bologna in 3 hours and 30 minutes, at an average speed of .
Rolling stock
Service on the high speed lines is provided by Trenitalia and the privately owned NTV. Several types of high-speed trains carry out the service:
AGV 575: non-tilting, it can reach and has an operational speed of up to , operated by NTV as Italo; ETR 500: non-tilting, it can reach 360km/h, operational speeds up to , operated by Trenitalia as the Frecciarossa; ETR 1000: non-tilting, operated by Trenitalia as the Frecciarossa 1000, it can reach and has operational speed of . ETR 485, tilting, speeds up to , operated by Trenitalia as the Frecciargento. It operates mainly on traditional lines; ETR 600, tilting, speeds up to , operated by Trenitalia as the Frecciarossa. It operates on routes that include relatively important sections on traditional lines, but also high-speed ones; ETR 610: tilting, speeds up to , operated by Trenitalia on EuroCity trains between Italy and Switzerland together with Giruno trainsets; ETR 675: non-tilting, operated by NTV as Italo; ETR 700: non-tilting, speeds up to , operated by Trenitalia as Frecciarossa mostly on routes consisting of sections on both traditional and high-speed lines.
Current limitations on the tracks set the maximum operating speed of the trains at after plans for operations were cancelled. Development of the ETR 1000 by AnsaldoBreda and Bombardier Transportation (which is designed to operate commercially at , with a technical top speed of over , is proceeding, with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana working on the necessary updates to allow trains to speed up to . On 28 May 2018, the Ministry for Infrastructures and Transportation and the National Association for Railway Safety decided not to run the tests required to allow commercial operation at , thus limiting the maximum commercial speed on the existing Italian high-speed lines to and cancelling the project.
TGV trains also run on the Paris-Turin-Milan service, but do not use any high-speed line in Italy.
Network
The following high-speed rail lines are in use.
The table shows minimum and maximum (depending on stops) travel times.
Milan to Salerno Corridor
The Milan to Salerno is the major north–south corridor of the high-speed network.
The Milan–Bologna segment opened on 13 December 2008. Its construction cost was about 6.9 billion euro. The line runs parallel to the Autostrada del Sole, crossing seven provinces and 32 municipalities. There are eight connections with historic lines. At the Reggio Emilia interconnection a new station designed by the Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava was opened in June 2013. Calatrava has also designed a signature bridge where the line crosses the A1 motorway. The line travels through a new multi-level station at Bologna (Italy's principal railway junction) designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki.