Since January 2026, passengers travelling on Trenitalia’s Frecce services which link major cities such as Rome, Milan and Naples have found their ticket prices determined by real‑time demand at the point of purchase.

Consumers often encounter dynamic pricing when booking flights, hotels or event tickets, but using it for train fares is far less common. Here’s what has changed for passengers booking high-speed train journeys with Trenitalia:   

• • No more fixed quotas of discounted tickets: previously a set number of super economy or economy fares were available in advance and once sold, a fixed high fare was available.
• • Instead, algorithms behind the scenes will make decisions on prices by pulling in data on sales performance, seasonality and customer behaviour.
• • Different price levels for tickets are still available for rail passengers but these will vary depending on real time demand, and the company says a price cap will be in place to prevent excessive pricing.

Is dynamic train pricing a fair deal?   

Trenitalia’s aim is to fill up trains and avoid half-empty carriages by making less popular journeys and schedules more attractive to consumers. 

For passengers, it could be that buying tickets well in advance becomes even cheaper than under the old pricing system. Consumers with flexible travel dates or who don’t have a fixed destination in mind could certainly benefit from this new system.  

But such flexibility is not always possible, so those passengers on popular routes who need to get to a destination at a set time, or buy close to departure could face paying more than the previous fixed high fare even with the promised price cap.

The dynamic pricing roller coaster

As dynamic or variable pricing has taken root in different sectors, Euroconsumers has looked across the market to see where consumers could win or lose out.  

Our webinar ‘The dynamic pricing rollercoaster: How can consumers get a fair ride?’ brought together economists, live music and sports fan representatives and startups to unpick how it is impacting consumers. 

Here, we heard a positive use case from a food waste app developer using dynamic pricing to encourage shoppers to buy up supermarket food that would otherwise go to landfill.  But we also heard concerns about a lack of transparency and choice for consumers in many transactions where dynamic pricing is in play:

“In theory, dynamic pricing can move both ways with demand, yet time and again concerts, flights, hotels and sporting events, the ticket price seems to only go in an upward direction.” Els Bruggeman, Head of Policy and Enforcemet at Euroconsumers

In particular, we’re concerned about when it might cut off access to essential services or cultural and sporting events through unfair inflated prices: 

Responding to skyrocketing prices at concerts and the FIFA World Cup, Euroconsumers launched the Real Price of Priceless campaign calling for a ban on dynamic pricing in live events and restore fair, transparent access to culture and sports.

Our 2025 position paper set out safeguards for fair and transparent variable pricing. While the practice is compatible with the current European framework, rules on transparency, price stability during the purchase process and clear consumer information are needed to keep things fair for consumers.

The recommendations also asked for more scrutiny of its use in markets where competition is low or non-existent and people have no choice but to pay a higher price. 

So far in Italy’s rail network, alternative operators like Italo and SNCF are still using their standard pricing tiers. It remains to be seen whether other companies in Italy or the rest of Europe will eventually follow Trenitalia’s lead.

That’s just one thing that our Italian member Altroconsumo will be watching out for in the coming weeks.  They will also carry out regular checks to spot how pricing trends are affecting consumers’ travel costs under the new system.

“The introduction of dynamic pricing in rail transport represents a significant evolution of pricing models, which is already widespread in other sectors.   Altroconsumo we will monitor the implementation of the Trenitalia system so that the rights of travellers are properly protected.” Federico Cavallo, Head of External Relations at Altroconsumo

Find out more about our work on dynamic pricing: 

• • Campaign: The Real Price Of Priceless  
• • Position paper: Is dynamic pricing legal? Definitely. Maybe 
• • Enforcement: Unfair dynamic prices and hidden fees: Euroconsumers call on the authorities over Ticketmaster’s pricing rollercoaster  
• • Policy advocacy: Letter to the European Commission to ban Dynmic pricing in live events