Italian train operator calls for European co-operation to create cross-border ‘metro service’
FS Group chief Stefano Donnarumma says competing national interests undermine rail connectivity
The head of Italy’s state railway company has called on European operators to co-operate and create a “common project” to provide faster and more frequent services between the continent’s biggest cities.
The comments by Stefano Donnarumma, chief executive of FS Group, show how domestic interests have often undermined efforts to improve cross-border rail connectivity despite rising demand since the pandemic. The EU introduced legislation to push competition on many domestic lines in 2016.
Donnarumma, whose company plans to challenge Eurostar’s monopoly by investing €1bn to launch a high-speed London to Paris service by 2029, said some countries had failed to prioritise connectivity within the continent.
“Cross-border transportation has not been a priority of the national operators, because the needs for . . . investment in your own country are so important that you just focus on these,” he said.
Donnarumma said he wanted to connect European cities “like with a metro service”, but conceded that this would be unrealistic without competitors working together, including on sharing depots and staff.
“I’ve had an open discussion with my colleagues of the other companies, and I said exactly this, why don’t we think about a common project where also several companies may participate?”
FS Group, which employs more than 95,000 people and runs nearly 10,000 trains a day, is one of Europe’s biggest railway groups. It operates domestic and international services from Italy through its Trenitalia subsidiary, and runs services in Spain, the UK, Greece, France and Germany.
Donnarumma said FS Group wanted eventually to run trains direct from Milan to London, and hoped to jump ahead of others planning services through the channel by using high-speed ETR1000 trains that it has ordered from Hitachi.
He also said other nations should consider limits on short-haul flights where there is a viable rail alternative, citing a 2023 French ban on some flights where a rail journey of two and a half hours was available.
“The approach of France is really in a good direction . . . And it may be interesting to enlarge this to the other countries,” Donnarumma added.
Alberto Mazzola, executive director of the railway industry body CER, said European railways “agree on their vision” for a high-speed cross-border rail network connecting major cities but lack “a unifying plan of action”.
CER said this month that cross-border rail travel would only be fully realised if there was faster deployment of the pan-European rail traffic management system, frictionless international ticketing and better harmonisation of national rules.
EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas told the Financial Times that there were “clear signs that citizens are choosing rail”, and pledged to present a plan “to fully connect all EU capitals and major cities with high-speed rail” by the summer.
The commission is working on legislation that would oblige national rail networks to improve cross-border train lines and to harmonise technology for rolling stock, according to an EU official involved in the work.
“Market integration is happening,” they said. “But we’re still working to fully build the single Europe railway area.”
Jon Worth, a European cross-border consultant, said that some railway companies such as Germany’s Deutsche Bahn and Austria’s OBB already work closely together, although not all relationships between state-owned railway companies were as harmonious.
“The answer here is not to compete or collaborate, if you’re a state owned railway. It’s do both, and decide which it is based on how malevolent or not the railway on the other side of the border is.”