Angeldimana

Hi All,

I'm looking to book Trieste to Ancona next week but i think there is a risk i may miss the 1.00pm train. There are alternative trains every hour or so, so can get a later one if need be but according to the website the tickets are non transferable, so i would have to buy another ticket.

Question is, is there a big difference in price if i turn up at the station and buy there?
The price around €60 online.

Lorna at Vicenza

I think you can use the same ticket for other trains as long as you don't jump onto an Intercity with a regional ticket for example.

I know that when I took my daughter to Florence we got to Vicenza train station and the train we booked online was late, a lot late. I asked for info in the ticket office and the guy there just told me to get on the other train that would now be coming in first and he'd tell the conductor. I have no idea if he did or what he said or if something was computerised but, when the conductor came around I showed him my online booking tickets on my mobile phone and he just nodded and ambled off.

Have a look at the English bit of their website but, don't expect it to be brilliant.

Condizioni Generali di trasporto - Condizioni Generali di trasporto - Trenitalia

Angeldimana

Hi Lorna,

Thanks for the reply. Not sure if it will be that easy. This is from the Trenitalia website...

Trenitalia - Domestic Fares

If i buy a ticket at the station on the day, is it likely to much more expensive?

The issue i have is that i'm traveling from Bosnia in the morning, via zagreb before i get the train at trieste. Hopefully, i'll make the 1.00pm train as that only has one change en route so is about 2 hours earlier.

Lorna at Vicenza

I don't think the prices change ........... but I'm not 100% sure. I only used the online service so I wouldn't have to queue up at Vicenza station as there are usually a lot of people there and of course half of the ticket booths are not open.

Garbatellamike

That's my impression too Lorna.

Angeldimana

OK, i think i'll take the risk and pay at the station.

Ruby2

From my experience that's the best plan. The ticket you can buy at the station on the day is the 'base' fare - you can find it on the trenitalia web-site. For the high speed 'freccia' trains (rossa, bianca or argento) the ticket includes a seat reservation which is why it is non-transferable.

sunnysider

My impression too that the price doesn't change and that this system has prevailed for decades. One of the good things about italy compared to the sheer raving madness of british rail pricing. God knows what tourists to britain think of it.

Seldomseenkid

For what it's worth I find the automatic ticket machines at the stations very good and it avoids all the queuing for the booth that closes just as you get there.

MarkRD

The biggest problem you may have at a station is having to queue to buy tickets (thus losing time), although the automatic machines are an advantage, when they work.

Read Tim Parks' Italian Ways as you travel . .there's a lot about the complex ticketing/queuing system!

Angeldimana

So it doesn't work like the UK then?
The UK is crazy!!
My mother in law said that when she travelling back from stansted to Leeds, when she was picking up the tickets. Her advance booked tickets cost £38 but the bloke at the next counter was buying his for the same train to Leeds, non pre paid for £125!!!

I'll take my chances on the day then.

MarkRD

In Italy some cheap tickets are made available in advance, which are usually booked well in advance. I went to Rome for € 9.00 once (from Bologna) on an early booking.
The good thing here is that the top price is still usually fairly acceptable. Italian trains have a long tradition of a democratic, transport for the people sort of philosophy and prices were heavily funded.
That's changing now of course, but Italians are still always shocked by train prices in the UK (possibly because they don't usual travel on trains in Italy either)!

Sancho

Of course it doesn't work like the UK.

If you're in the UK, go to RAILEASY, put in where you're going to, where you're coming from, etc, and you'll see all the different possibilities, with different prices and so on. There are other sites as well.

Conversely, if you're in Italy, go to TRENITALIA, put in where you're going to, where you're coming from, etc, and you'll see all the different possibilities, with different prices and so on.

sunnysider

Agree with all of this. Despite some past issues with massive overmanning and some questionable pension arrangements i have always much preferred the italian system. And of course they didn't hack their system to bits in the 60s.

The british fares system also effectively acts as a punishing tax on tourists since they are unlikely to have booked their fares weeks in advance.

Also agree with your sting in the tail final sentence . Trains are very underused in sardinia for of course so many of the sards, despite what they may say sometimes, are still so italian in many ways and are car addicted, so don't like to leave their wheels behind. Hopefully this might change with the doubling of some key bits of track and the new rolling stock.

Serrano

And the prize for the understatement of the year goes to ....

(not that TrenItalia were - or still are, I don't know - alone in this)