Trainline has competitive strengths and structural tailwinds that position the business for significant long-term growth.
Competitive strengths
We enable millions of travellers to seamlessly search, book and manage their journeys through our highly rated Trainline website, mobile app and B2B partner channels.
4.9/5 star rated app
c.136 million platform visits each month
Most downloaded rail app in Europe
Our innovation focuses on creating a simple, consistent, friction-free experience for booking and managing travel. We bring together all carriers into one app while providing smart, real-time travel information and self-serve capabilities like journey changes and refunds.
Simple, intuitive user interface with all carriers, fares and railcards in one place
Seamless, friction-free booking experience
Digital tickets and railcards, smart personalisation, real time travel info
AI-powered products and features to help customers navigate disruption: Travel Forecast, AI Travel Assistant and Delay Repay notifications
Money-saving features: SplitSave, Price Prediction, Ticket Alerts, Best Fare Finder, Railcard Finder
Self-service change of journey, automated refund capability
We have developed a highly scalable, marketing playbook in the UK, which we are deploying across our core markets in Europe. This helps drive customer acquisition at scale while maintaining a low cost per new customer acquired (“CPA”)
>80% new customer acquisition through free channels in the UK (e.g. SEO)
Sophisticated CRM strategies to drive engagement and frequency
93% app share of UK Consumer transactions through the app
70% app share of International Consumer transactions through the app
As a platform business, we offer our innovative retailing experience directly to customers through our Trainline-branded businesses, while also giving carrier partners and other travel businesses access to our retail solutions to offer to their customers.
270+ rail and coach companies with deep integrations across 40 countries
c.500 engineers, data and tech specialists
End-to-end digital retailing and ticketing solutions for rail carriers at a lower cost to serve
Provides travel sellers access to our rail content through one connection - our global API
Tailwinds for growth
Rail market shifting to online and mobile ticketing
Customers are increasingly booking tickets online
This has largely been driven by an increasing use of barcode read digital tickets (or etickets)
Trainline has championed etickets for several years as a core part of our mobile app proposition
>90% of all journeys eticket-enabled in the UK
Carrier competition set to expand across France and Italy from next year
The EU’s Fourth Railway Package (December 2020) opened domestic rail markets to competition. As a result, carrier competition is emerging across France, Spain, and Italy, with the major carriers there entering each other’s markets. Trainline is well placed to scale across Spain, France and Italy as carrier competition becomes more widespread over the next few years. The three markets today represent an addressable market of around €17 billion, expected to grow to €23 billion by 2030. By honing our aggregation playbook, we plan to position Trainline as the aggregator of choice. We can help more customers make the right choice when booking tickets, while removing friction that can sometimes arise when travelling by train. We believe this will serve as the catalyst to scale our International business, given liberalised high-speed rail routes across Spain, France and Italy are estimated to generate c.€12 billion of annual industry passenger revenues by 2030.
Spain
Since 2021, Spain has increased from one high-speed carrier – the national incumbent Renfe – to four different carrier brands competing across its five largest high-speed routes (representing €1.5 billion in annual passenger revenues)
Increased carrier competition is benefiting customers, who now enjoy significantly more choice coupled with lower ticket prices
Italy
Trenitalia and NTV Italo already compete on the high-speed network, generating €2.0 billion of annual passenger revenues
SNCF are set to launch operations in Italy from late 2027 – connecting Turin-Naples and Turin-Venice with 13 daily round trips – becoming the third nationwide competitor
France
In FY2026, Trenitalia significantly expanded services across South-East France’s c.€1 billion high-speed rail network, increasing Paris–Lyon frequencies from five to 14 daily return services and introducing four daily return services on Paris–Marseille
Several new entrant carrier brands are due to launch, with the first arriving in 2028:
Velvet launching on Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes and Angers to Paris from 2028
Le Train to launch services to Bordeaux, Rennes, Tours and Nantes
Illisto planning to launch on Lille, Strasbourg and Lyon to Paris
Carrier competition on the Channel Tunnel expected to arrive from 2029 on the lucrative €1.7 billion route. Trenitalia and Virgin Trains have both announced plans to launch competitor services to Eurostar
