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Hi everyone, I am conducting an academic research about the liberalization of passenger high-speed rail and currently I am trying to find which countries in Europe have competition, i.e. more than one rail operator, in high-speed rail.

So far what I know:

  • Spain has competition in high-speed rail with three companies (Iryo, Ouigo and Renfe)
  • In Italy, there is competition in high-speed rail with TrenItalia and Italo
  • Within France, the only competition is found in international routes: Barcelona - Lyon (Renfe) and Paris - Lyon - Milano (TrenItalia and SNCF). But for all the other routes, only SNCF.

I wanted to ask if you know which other countries have more than one operator in their high-speed rail network.

Any help will be highly appreciated!đŸ€—

Not real high speed, but Higher speed:

Sweden: MTR (Gothenburg Stockholm) and SnÀlltÄget between Sthlm and Malmö  other than SJ. 

Austria: Westbahn, other than ÖBB

Czechia/Slovakia: Leo express and RegioJet, other than CD and ZSSK

Germany: Flix Train on some Long Distance routes, otjer than DB.

Hi @BrendanDB thanks so much for your answer that is super helpful :)

You're welcome, it's just what I know.

Others might add or nuance things :) 

Within France, the only competition is found in international routes: Barcelona - Lyon (Renfe) and Paris - Lyon - Milano (TrenItalia and SNCF). But for all the other routes, only SNCF.

Note SNCF does not operate neither Barcelona-Lyon nor Milan-Lyon, which Renfe resp. Trenitalia do. SNCF does offer these routes but requiring a change.

In terms of competition, the UK is quite interesting, albeit most competition takes place to obtain the PSO franchises. Other than that, there are a few open access operators, such as Lumo and Grand Central, but competition with franchises is obviously pretty controlled (by the ORR in the UK's case).

Regiojet is offering Prague-Vienna and Prague-Vienna-Budapest too.

Flixtrain in Sweden? Is it still a thing?

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