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-   -   Italy launches private high-speed train (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198994)

M II A II R II K Apr 23, 2012 4:40 PM
Italy launches private high-speed train
 
Italy launches private high-speed train


April 22, 2012

By Ljubomir Milasin

http://s.ph-cdn.com/tmpl/v3/img/phys.org.png

Read More: http://phys.org/news/2012-04-italy-p...igh-speed.html

Quote:
The dark-red bullet-shaped "Italo" trains are run by NTV, a company headed by Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo who wants to take a quarter of the market from state rail network Trenitalia, the biggest employer in the country. "Italo has arrived, the competition has kicked off," NTV told its first passengers on an inaugural trip from Rome to Naples as they admired interiors that included a cinema carriage, leather seats and panoramic windows. The project is one example of the new ambitions of the eurozone's third largest economy under Monti, a former EU competition commissioner who plans to shake up a sluggish economy heavily influenced by protectionist traditions.

- France's national rail company SNCF owns a 20-percent stake in NTV but the majority is held by a consortium of Italian businessmen including Montezemolo and Diego Della Valle, the billionaire head of luxury shoemaker Tod's. The carriages are produced by French company Alstom. "Our aim is to take a 20-25 percent stake of the market by 2014," transporting nine million passengers within three years, Montezemolo said, adding that the company would operate 25 trains by January 2013. "Consumers have already benefited from the beginning of competition. Trenitalia has lowered its ticket prices and improved the service," Marco Ponti, a professor of transport economics in Milan, told AFP.

- But Ponti warned that the nascent competition may be too "uneven." "This is a dwarf against a giant. Trenitalia owns the railway, the stations, the waiting rooms, everything," he said. "The economy is not very favourable with the crisis," he said, adding: "Montezemolo can go bankrupt, Trenitalia can't. It's a state company." Italy's economy entered recession in the second half of last year and the government this week warned that the situation will worsen, with a forecast contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) of 1.2 percent this year. Ponti warned that the economic outlook could bring Trenitalia and NTV together with a deal "that would destroy healthy competition." "What we need is a third player," he said.

.....



http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/ne...ebossoffer.jpg

kingkirbythe.... Apr 23, 2012 5:16 PM
Very hot looking trains.

dchan Apr 23, 2012 8:57 PM
^ Do you expect anything else from Italians? If these trains are anything like their automobiles, then you'd probably expect exquisitely designed exteriors as well as soulful motors and chassis design, but also unreliable mechanical components, suspect quality issues, and perplexing ergonomics inside.

vid Apr 23, 2012 9:22 PM
The trains are French, which means that they'll refuse to work if you push them too hard.

I would imagine that SNCF's investment was dependent on choosing Alstom to manufacture the trains.

pesto Apr 23, 2012 9:47 PM
Glad to see private competition, but what is really the point here? They note that they will compete against the bureaucratic, arthritic state system, but then note that the state system has all the advantages. Is this a hint that they have figured out they are going to lose a ton of money?

electricron Apr 23, 2012 9:51 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by vid (Post 5676784)
The trains are French, which means that they'll refuse to work if you push them too hard.

I would imagine that SNCF's investment was dependent on choosing Alstom to manufacture the trains.
Maybe an Alstom (French) design, but these trains are being built in both Savigliano, Italy and La Rochelle, France.

miketoronto Apr 23, 2012 10:46 PM
This really makes no sense at all, as all it will do is drain riders from the state run railways, and cause the government to have to provide more subsidy to keep the state run system going.

And just as with airlines, the ticket prices are all going to be around the same price. It really does not make competition and lower prices.

If this company had to build the tracks themselves, they would not even be operating.

Cro Burnham Apr 24, 2012 8:37 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto (Post 5676889)
This really makes no sense at all, as all it will do is drain riders from the state run railways, and cause the government to have to provide more subsidy to keep the state run system going.

And just as with airlines, the ticket prices are all going to be around the same price. It really does not make competition and lower prices.

If this company had to build the tracks themselves, they would not even be operating.
And what good will high speed rail do when the rail workers strike every other day?

mousquet Apr 24, 2012 9:08 PM
Maybe a fair solution would be a rail network developed and maintained by the public authorities to ensure safety (see what happened in the UK when public rails were privatized in the 80s) and to fund long run strategical developments, but then the track network could be rented to private businesses to operate it. Such a system could bring competition, reliability and ambitious transit developments at the same time. Something I wonder about when thinking of France's system.

Rail workers' strikes are very exaggerated by a few posts above, turning that into a stereotype joke. You may be surprised to see how many days a year rail workers are actually on strike in France. I can't remember the number but it's far from as much as you wanna mean. However, when they strike, it's indeed a bad freakin' mess.

ardecila Apr 24, 2012 9:57 PM
I lived in Rome for four months and witnessed seven strikes. Some of them were 'solidarity' strikes, though - transit workers for ATAC were striking in general protest of the government, not in specific protest of their working conditions or pay.

Some of this dropped off after Berlusconi stepped down in November.

I also witnessed a strike in Venice... that was fun. :hell:

Busy Bee Apr 24, 2012 10:05 PM
Ah, Venice.

Nexis4Jersey Apr 24, 2012 11:29 PM
Why do they strike so often?

electricron Apr 25, 2012 3:08 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto (Post 5676889)
This really makes no sense at all, as all it will do is drain riders from the state run railways, and cause the government to have to provide more subsidy to keep the state run system going.

And just as with airlines, the ticket prices are all going to be around the same price. It really does not make competition and lower prices.

If this company had to build the tracks themselves, they would not even be operating.
You might have a point about the state owned tracks and corridors. I'm thinking the private company will be providing a faster service than the state ran service, similar to Amtrak Acela trains vs Amtrak Regional trains, with Acela trains being ran by a private, for profit, company.

MolsonExport Apr 25, 2012 3:57 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by dchan (Post 5676744)
^ Do you expect anything else from Italians? If these trains are anything like their automobiles, then you'd probably expect exquisitely designed exteriors as well as soulful motors and chassis design, but also unreliable mechanical components, suspect quality issues, and perplexing ergonomics inside.
From my experience with Italian HSR, the trains are beautiful, but somewhat less than high quality....my Florence-Bologna train never made it into the station. The return train had no functioning A/C (it was 41C in Florence that day in July 2007). My transfer train (Bologna-Verona) also broke down. It was an experience spending several hours on the side of the tracks, in the wee hours of the morning and not speaking a lick of Italian.

M II A II R II K May 2, 2012 8:29 PM
On High-Speed Rails, a New Challenger in Italy


April 28, 2012

By GAIA PIANIGIANI

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/wo...taly.html?_r=1

Quote:
.....

By the end of the year, the company plans to have 25 trains connecting nine Italian cities, and its goal is a 20-to-25 percent market share by 2014, with eight million to nine million passengers a year, which would allow the company to break even. The battleground will be over high-end services, pricing and food. The Italo trains provide their 450 passengers with free Wi-Fi, satellite television, a 39-seat cinema carriage, leather seats manufactured by the luxury furniture maker Poltrona Frau, and assistance and welcome points in the main stations designed by the team of the Italian architect Stefano Boeri. A third of all tickets will be available at a lower cost, if booked early and for off-peak times.

- “The risk NTV is taking is certainly very high, amplified by Italy’s current economic crisis and the improvement of the Italian infrastructure that is still lagging behind,” said Oliviero Baccelli, vice director at the Center for Research on Regional Economics, Transport and Tourism at the Milan-based Bocconi University. “But high-speed in Italy has very, very significant development margins.” As of 2009, Italians took high-speed trains considerably less than French or German rail passengers, as only 22 percent of passengers used them in Italy, compared with nearly 27 percent in Germany and 60 percent in France. However, since then, high-speed trains started darting between Rome and Milan in only three hours, and Trenitalia’s market share increased to 55 percent from 32 percent on this route, while airline travel decreased to 32 percent from 52 percent.

- Italy is being seen as a test case for Europe. Since 2004, European legislation has liberalized international and domestic rail travel for freight and passengers, but there still is no obligation under European Union law to open domestic services to market competition as Italy did. And it might go further, as the Italian government has recently passed a law requiring local authorities to hold bids for train services. Trenitalia has also sought to compete in the high-end market, recently revamping some of its high-speed trains with leather interiors, a business carriage and first-class dining menus by the Umbrian chef Gianfranco Vissani. “Often, dirty bathrooms and prices aside, there is little to complain now about the service on Trenitalia, too,” said Elisa Rossetti, 34, who was planning to watch a movie in the cinema carriage with her husband and their 5-year-old daughter.

.....



http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...leLarge-v2.jpg

miketoronto May 2, 2012 8:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron (Post 5678458)
You might have a point about the state owned tracks and corridors. I'm thinking the private company will be providing a faster service than the state ran service, similar to Amtrak Acela trains vs Amtrak Regional trains, with Acela trains being ran by a private, for profit, company.
From what I have heard, the trains will not be any faster than the State Rail trains, as the State Rail trains already operate express between Milan and Rome.

electricron May 2, 2012 9:37 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto (Post 5687631)
From what I have heard, the trains will not be any faster than the State Rail trains, as the State Rail trains already operate express between Milan and Rome.
Does the State owned train also run express trains between Rome and Naples, Rome and Venice, etc?

Mad_Nick May 3, 2012 12:30 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto (Post 5676889)
This really makes no sense at all, as all it will do is drain riders from the state run railways, and cause the government to have to provide more subsidy to keep the state run system going.

And just as with airlines, the ticket prices are all going to be around the same price. It really does not make competition and lower prices.

If this company had to build the tracks themselves, they would not even be operating.
The point is to make a few very wealthy people even more wealthy. Italy is currently run by a cabal of unelected neoliberal technocrats whose sole purpose is to get rid of as many commonly owned assets to private companies and get rid of as many employee protection laws as possible before the people realizes what's happening to their country...

mousquet May 3, 2012 2:02 PM
:previous: Uh, that political assertion is pretty offtopic and requires an explanation, if not a warning. In Europe, the left wing parties overuse the term '(neo)liberalism' to refer to excessive deregulation, which they obviously oppose. Just to make sure people know that in the common European political language, 'liberal' doesn't mean the same as in North America at all. In fact, it means kind of the opposite and the US conservatives are often called liberal on this side of the Atlantic. The actual meaning of that term is stolen away for blaming economic deregulation in the European context.

No doubt there are serious reasons to be skeptical and critical about deregulation in several matters. However, one should admit that labor laws are far too rigid in a number of countries of the Eurozone, in France for instance. That is just awkward, counterproductive, actually raises unemployment by discouraging businesses from hiring. In short, those lucky who've got a job are overprotected (especially employees of the public sector) by those labor laws while they make everything way harder for job seekers. The European left wing people would call you a neoliberal (which is derogative and means neoconservative from them) for pointing out that inequity.

pesto May 3, 2012 6:15 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad_Nick (Post 5688384)
The point is to make a few very wealthy people even more wealthy. Italy is currently run by a cabal of unelected neoliberal technocrats whose sole purpose is to get rid of as many commonly owned assets to private companies and get rid of as many employee protection laws as possible before the people realizes what's happening to their country...
Ah, signore, if only this were true! Italy could become internationally respected again.

Better check the reports from every international financial institution, government, lender, advisor, consultant, potential investor, think tank, university, etc., who suggest this as the proper solution, minus a few of the loaded words.

I love "cabal", don't you? I mean, "neoliberal" is kind of racy too but you never see "cabal" and "train service" in the same discussion.


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