Deutsche Bahn, the German railway company, is preparing to challenge Trenitalia on the Italian market as early as 2014, bureaucratic times permitting. After obtaining the national passenger transport license from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport at the end of 2012, Arriva Italia Rail, the company set up ad hoc to manage the railway service in the peninsula, applied for the safety certificate to the Agency national railway safety.
If initially it was expected that the certificate could arrive by mid-2013, now the times have slipped to the end of the year-beginning of 2014. In the meantime, the German giant is not staying on the sidelines. According to Radiocor, the group is already taking part in the auctions for the assignment of regional passenger transport services, a segment in which it intends to challenge the Italian railways. On the other hand, any involvement in the high-speed segment appears to be excluded, at least for the moment.
'In Italy, perhaps the only case in Europe, there are already two high-speed operators – explained a source close to the dossier – and it would make no sense for a third operator to be added now'. Especially at a time when a price war seems to have broken out between the two railway transport companies which has led to Ntv's accusations against Trenitalia and to the intervention today by the Antitrust to verify whether there has been an abuse of a dominant position with tariffs by dumping ticket prices. For the moment, Deutsche Bahn's plan is to travel at lower speed on regional trains, counting on the ability to offer a quality service and build an important alternative for those who still prefer to use the railways to that of their own car.
