High speed train – Train services
Note: For educational purpose only. This page is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect. It is not a substitute for the official page of the operating company, manufacturer or official institutions. It cannot be used for staff training, which is the responsibility of approved institutions and companies.
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Site map High Speed Railways
1 – Overview → 2 – Infrastructure → 3 – Rolling Stock → 4 – Train services → 5 – Economics & Post evaluation
Key words
This section explain:
• Commercial specifications
• Open access and regulation in Europe
• Traffic density
• Maintenance
Commercial specifications
In the 1980s and 1990s, as already explained, the idea was to better manage railway finances and split services, making each financially accountable according to its mission. Long-distance services were considered capable of being financially autonomous and therefore no longer entitled to receive subsidies.
Most high-speed train operators are state-owned companies, with the notable exception of Japan, where since 1987 five private companies own the infrastructure, trains and stations. Elsewhere in Europe, operators do not receive subsidies but pay a toll to access the infrastructure. They operate in a commercial environment where costs are covered by ticket sales. In China, South Korea, and Taiwan, a single company operates the infrastructure, the stations, and the train services.
Open access and regulation in Europe
However, for the European Commission, this did not mean that only the incumbent operator could run high-speed trains. New operators were seen as welcome—not only to challenge the incumbent (lowering prices) but above all to grow the market and try to shift some air and road passengers to efficient trains.
But as soon as several operators share the same infrastructure, regulation, governance and organisational issues are sensitive aspects in the market of public utilities especially when these markets require and aim at initiating homogenisation processes.
This is how the Directive 2012/34/EU came about, which requires each EU Member State to establish an independent regulatory body to ensure fair, non-discriminatory access to railway infrastructure and services. This obligation supports the creation of a single European railway area by preventing dominant operators or infrastructure managers from distorting competition and to erect barriers.
The body monitors compliance, handles complaints, and enforces transparent charging and capacity allocation. Its independence from railway undertakings, infrastructure managers, and political influence ensures impartial decisions. By safeguarding fair competition and resolving disputes, it removes hidden barriers for cross-border and new entrants, making EU railway market liberalisation effective and consistent across all Member States.
Following the European law (Directive 2012/34), the Regulator has to be fully independent from the government, from businesses and Infrastructure operators in order to avoid conflicts of interest. These principles do not apply elsewhere in the world, particularly in Asia, where the HSR operator remains the entity that operates the infrastructure.
Italy was the first country which implemented an ‘open access’ competition between the incumbent rail operator FS (now Trenitalia) and a new company in the high-speed segment, by allowing the arrival of a new operator in April 2012, which at the time was said ‘would not last long…’
On-track HSR competition in Italy took place in a very specific context: a long term declining Italian railway demand coupled with a negative European macroeconomic environment and physical positive factors. Facing these challenges, the NTV new operator’s shareholders opted for an ambitious strategy of costly investments and an innovative rail business model.
Today, NTV-Italo is estimated to be worth more than €4 billions by managing of only 120 trains per day. The company operates their trains on the same tracks and in the same stations as the incumbent operator Trenitalia, which retains two-thirds of the high-speed market. SNCF will be soon the third operator on Italian tracks. There is now no one in Italy to challenge this model of liberalisation, except radical left.
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Traffic density
The traffic density on a high-speed line depends greatly on the network configuration and the market. In Spain, for example, the market is very limited, and the lines are largely underutilized. In other countries, such as France, hub-and-spoke lines can be heavily used. For instance, France overlays several distinct traffic flows on its Paris–Marseille line: Paris–Lyon, Paris–Switzerland, Paris–Marseille, and Paris–Montpellier.
Traffic density also varies significantly depending on the number of intermediate stops. This is particularly the case in Italy, but even more so in Germany, Japan, and Taiwan. All intermediate stations may be served, or only partially served. This requires a mix of trains that stop at only one, two, or three stations, and others that stop at several stations—or even all stations. All of this impacts the timetable structure and the ability of a high-speed line to accommodate a certain number of trains per hour.
Traffic density is also a matter of braking capacity. The advances and innovations enjoyed by each component of the high-speed system have, for example in France, made it possible to increase from an initial throughput of 12 trains per hour per direction at 260 km/h in 1981, to 15 trains per hour per direction at 320 km/h in 2007.
The Tōkaidō Shinkansen in Japan operates at very high frequency: at peak times the line runs on the order of 12–16 trains per hour in each direction, and JR Central reports a maximum/typical operational frequency in the same range (daily service peaks and special seasonal increases can push that frequency even higher).
Timetable patterns on the Tokyo–Shin-Osaka corridor historically follow a dominant “fast” service mix: recent timetable analyses and JR material describe a typical peak pattern often summarized as “12-2-2” — roughly twelve limited-stop Nozomi, two semi-fast Hikari and two all-stop Kodama per hour — i.e. Nozomi ~75%, Hikari ~12.5% and Kodama (all-stations) ~12.5% of the hourly departures in that pattern.
The Milano–Roma high-speed corridor typically carries on the order of 80–100 high-speed departures per day in each direction with two operators (Trenitalia + NTV-Italo), which translates to roughly 4–6 trains per hour on average across the service day (higher at peaks, lower late evening).
Non-stop “express” workings represent a minority but significant share of ca 25–30% of departures on some timetables, while the remainder are limited-stop or all-stations-services—mostly limited-stop fast Frecciarossa/Italo plus a smaller number of regional-pattern calls.
As of today, the Paris–Lyon high-speed line (LGV Sud-Est) operates at a maximum capacity of 13 trains per hour per direction during peak times. This service level is supported by the existing TVM (Transmission Voie-Machine) signalling system.
Looking ahead, the LGV+ project aims to increase this capacity to 16 trains per hour per direction by 2030. This enhancement will be achieved by upgrading the signalling system to ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System), which will allow for more efficient train operations and improved interoperability across Europe.
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Maintenance
The maintenance of railway vehicles plays a crucial role in safeguarding the high level of safety that is expected by society in railway traffic. But the maintenance of high-speed rolling stock has also various targets, including in particular safety, reliability, availability, ecological and economic.
One aspect is the exceptionnally complexity of rail vehicles maintenance. They contain mechanical component such as gear drives, high-performance rolling contact bearings. They also contain electrical, power electronic and digital components as well as computer system.
Maintenance follows a number of industrial procedures, processes and methods. Its purpose is to return a train to working order for the operator in a timely manner. Every additional hour in a workshop costs money because a train that is out of service is an unproductive asset.
In the high-speed sector, the operator is responsible for maintenance, particularly with regard to high speed. The reason for this is that in Europe, the fleet is not standardised and the four or five public companies that operate this type of train – DB, SNCF, Trenitalia, Renfe – have all chosen trains from different manufacturers (Siemens, Alstom, Hitachi-Rail, Talgo). Only the private operator NTV-Italo has built a depot in Nola near Naples, but with a 30-year maintenance contract with Alstom. 🟧
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Passenger train services • Lexical