10 years of Italo. A milestone, an important anniversary of a private company that started from scratch a real revolution in the high-speed rail sector, offering higher quality and cheaper services and giving passengers another choice, thus improving opportunities in the Italian market. Ten years of competition, which have allowed high-speed railways to expand around most of the country and reach important economic, social and cultural sectors.
Italo’s first train departed from Naples Central Station to Milan on 28 April 2012. This was the maiden trip of Europe’s most advanced train of the time, the Alstom’s AGV575. Italo’s fleet was formed by 25 trains.
Naples-Rome-Milan, passing through Florence and Bologna, was the company’s only line at the time. However, thanks to the management and shareholder’s strong will, Italo then started an ambitious growth path. Over the years, the company has entered into important Italian stations such as Rome Termini, Milano Centrale, Torino Porta Nuova and Verona Porta Nuova. On top of these, there have been other strategic additions to the network such as Salerno, Venice, Reggio Emilia. 2017, 5 years after the maiden trip, saw then the arrival of Italo EVO trains, an evolution of the Pendolino trains, manufactured by Alstom. Italo bought 26 EVO trains, thus expanding the fleet to the current total of 51 trains.
The pandemic had a strong impact on the transport sector in 2020. Due to the limitations in the trips between different regions, Italo went through a very tough period and had to practically reset its offers. In order to face the emergency period and guarantee passengers and workers safety, the company was fast in investing to make its trains become the best in class in terms of safety. Several measures were taken, among which installing HEPA filters: Italo is the first train in the world to have the same filters used by planes to guarantee a continuous change of air. In the same period, the company was close to its employees by increasing its training activities in order to improve their knowledge and be ready to start again. Despite all the issues and the decrease in traffic on what were the most popular lines before the pandemic, Italo decided to believe in its future and thus increase its network, expanding its activities in south Italy, an area with a great demand for high-quality train transportation.
Italo opened up lines in Calabria and Cilento, followed then by Apulia, Caserta and Benevento last summer. This choice was appreciated by the market, thus Italo confirmed these lines also for the other periods of the year. Few months ago, Italo started trips between Genoa and Milan, Rome and Naples, thus connecting strategic areas of the country.
Ten years with many important goals and achievements: over 100 million passengers and a current network of 53 station in 48 towns, 116 trips a day and a team of over 1400 employees. A successful story, which has made Italy’s high-speed train unique at global level. This is now an excellence of the so-called made in Italy and Italo is a case history that has led many countries to liberalize the market in order to repeat this experience.