Trainline, the app for buying the cheapest train ticket, designed in Barcelona.

BarcelonaUntil a few years ago, there was no doubt. When you wanted to take a high-speed train, it was always an AVE (High Speed Train). All you had to do was fight with the Renfe website to get the tickets you wanted, after refreshing a page that easily crashed a thousand times. However, not much was done because, at that time, traveling between Barcelona and Madrid by AVE was too expensive. Despite it being a short and comfortable journey, people often ended up choosing to travel by plane, unless the company paid.

But, starting in 2021, everything changed. Just after the pandemic, the liberalization of high-speed trains began with the arrival of the French operator Ouigo to cover the Barcelona-Madrid route, Spain's main corridor. Shortly after, Renfe's low-cost option, AVLO, came into operation, and in 2022, it was the turn of the Italian company Iryo. Over the years, competition spread to the rest of the corridors.

Competition has driven down ticket prices, while boosting ridership and filling stations to capacity. With the price drop, a journey that was previously only taken occasionally has become more common, but the purchasing process has also become more complicated. To avoid having to visit the websites of Renfe, Ouigo, and Iryo, or having to download multiple apps, Trainline arrived.

Although some people only use it to see all the prices and schedules offered by different operators, the ticket distributor allows the entire process to be completed on a single website, especially useful when the outbound journey is with one company and the return journey with another, or when traveling from one city to another. "It's very fast: we complete the purchase in two clicks," explains Pedro García, general manager of Trainline in Spain and recently promoted to general manager in Europe. And, if there are cancellations or delays, Trainline also handles all the paperwork.

"When we arrived in Spain, they used us more as a comparison site. As we've expanded our reach, more users trust us to handle the entire process," explains García. In the last two years, the company has almost tripled its ticket sales to the Spanish state, reaching €199 million. Its market share on major routes has also grown, from 5% to 12%.

The price offered by Trainline is the same as that offered on the websites of Renfe, Ouigo, and Iryo, including promotions such as Verano Joven or the Renfe Gold Card. The platform takes a commission from each sale, based on the commercial agreements it has signed with the various operators. Of all high-speed journeys made throughout Spain, Trainline is responsible for 18%, meaning that without them, they would not have occurred.

Born in the United Kingdom, developed in Barcelona

Trainline is a British distributor created in 1997, when train tickets were still sold by telephone. In the United Kingdom, there was a key characteristic that made a proposal like Trainline's necessary. "It's a very fragmented market, with more than 20 railway operators, different according to the region. Customer confusion was very high because the train that went from London to Liverpool was not the same as the one that arrived in Brighton or Leeds," says García. As competition spread throughout Europe, the platform entered more markets, especially European ones, with Spain as one of the most important, although it is also exploring expansion in Asian and American countries.

With offices in London, Edinburgh, Paris, and Milan, the company opened its Spanish headquarters in Barcelona in 2021. It also established a technological development center there, for both the website and the mobile application. "The idea of hub Barcelona's mission was never to develop services only for Spain, but to serve Trainline's entire international expansion in Europe," the executive emphasizes. In the Catalan capital, they started with six employees and have changed offices three times because they were outgrowing them. With a current workforce of 60, they aspire to reach 100.

In this ongoing platform update, Trainline has been incorporating new services, such as commuter train tickets, which are selling well in Barcelona and Madrid, reaching agreements with companies such as Booking.com and Cabify. "We don't just want to offer transportation services, but also accommodation and tour guides. We must think about what else we can offer customers once they've purchased their Madrid-Barcelona ticket," García explains.

After years of significant price drops, which had been moderating on routes such as Madrid and Barcelona, ​​​​the upswing seen since Renfe announced the closure of the service is worrying. eliminated its low-cost brand. In just one month, tickets from all operators have become more expensive 40% for that route, regardless of the operator, placing the average price at 80 euros and rising to 150 euros on weekends.