New competition on high speed line in France : can the new Frecciarossa Trenitalia high speed train Milano – Lyon – Paris be successful?

Abstract

Since December 18, 2021, Trenitalia has been serving Lyon and Paris in open access as an extension of the Milan - Turin - Lyon - Paris line. Goodbye monopoly (Laroche, 2022b) in the French high speed market expected for long time. It is the result of the 2011 white paper E.U. (2011) where European transport policy aims at strengthening the dynamics of competition in passenger rail transport in the E.U. For the moment, the offer concerns five relations between Paris and Lyon (and two continuing to Milano). Offices and ticket vending machines have been installed in the Lyon and Paris stations. Our paper will focus on the start-up of this service by attempting to evaluate the first six months of operation.