Trenitalia scraps its high-speed carnet: anyone who goes to the office once a week pays more than double

21 October 2026, 18:32

From 1 November Trenitalia, a company of Ferrovie dello Stato, which is in turn wholly owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, stops selling the Carnet Smart: ten journeys on Frecciarossa and Frecciargento high-speed trains, Monday to Friday, to be used within thirty days. On the Turin-Milan route it cost €139. Other carnets, to be used within six months, remain on sale, but with much smaller discounts. As the alternative for those who go to the office only a few days a month, Trenitalia offers the monthly season ticket, which from November costs €80 less. In return every seat booked costs €2, whereas until October the booking was included in the price.

In a statement, Trenitalia explains the decision with the "changed mobility needs of customers" and the need to "counter the phenomenon of unused bookings", which, according to the company, take seats away from other passengers.

So who saves? Every paid booking eats into the season-ticket reduction, which is used up after 40 journeys, that is twenty days of return trips. Anyone who goes to the office every working day of the month goes past that threshold and pays a little more than before. In its statement Trenitalia gives the example of a Naples-Rome season-ticket holder who makes 30 journeys a month and saves €20. The model customer, it seems, goes to the office three days out of four.

Those who travelled once a week, on the other hand, could buy the carnet. With five return trips a month between Turin and Milan, that is ten journeys, from November they will spend €314 on the season ticket and bookings. That is €175 more every month, more than double what they paid before. According to Movimento Consumatori, a consumer association, those paying it are workers on insecure contracts, occasional contractors, students and employees who alternate between the office and working from home.

Have needs really changed? Compared with the pandemic years, fewer people work from home. But according to the Smart Working Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, since 2022 the number of remote workers has stayed almost the same, and in 2025 it even grew slightly. The worker who splits the week between home and office is not disappearing. What disappears is the carnet they used, withdrawn by a publicly owned company with two weeks' notice.

In the same statement, Trenitalia describes the Carnet Smart as a "commercial product sold on the market". On the market, in fact, the product remains: Italo, the private competitor, still sells its own carnets of ten journeys in thirty days. In the United Kingdom, in 2021, it was the Department for Transport that had a season ticket put on sale offering eight days of travel every four weeks, designed for part-time commuters. In Italy some members of parliament have announced questions to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport asking for the carnet to come back.

So the question, for Trenitalia: of the unused bookings the statement wants to counter, how many came from carnets and how many from season tickets, where until October booking cost nothing?

From November the cut in the season ticket goes to those who travel little. As long as they do not travel so little that they had bought the carnet.

This article was prompted by a news item published in Il Post on 21 October 2026.