In January 2008, the company ordered 25 Alstom Automotrice à grande vitesse (AGV) trainsets, which formed NTV's initial fleet.

Despite intentions to begin services in late 2011, the launch of passenger operations was postponed to April 2012 due to lengthy certification processes.

Further trainsets of Alstom's Pendolino family have also been procured, as well as coordination with bus operators, as measures to expand NTV's service coverage.

[14] As of 2024, the network consists of several routes, for a total of over 90 daily trips serving 54 cities and 62 stations:[7] The company was created in 2006 by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Diego Della Valle, Gianni Punzo and Francesco Sciarrone to compete on Italian high-speed rail operator given the liberalization of the railway sector in the European Union.

[16] NTV's shareholders took on significant risk in their startup as Italy was the first country in the world to open its high-speed rail market to competition.

[17] In January 2008 NTV changed its corporate structure with the entry of Intesa Sanpaolo, followed in October of the same year by the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF); in the same year the railway company ordered to Alstom the construction of twenty-five trains of the Automotrice à grande vitesse (AGV) type, which were built in the plants of La Rochelle and Savigliano.

[19] In March 2011, the company publicly complained that the Italian rail infrastructure manager, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), was obstructing its plans to run trains by making last-minute changes to network statements, as well as questioning the legality of its access charges.

[24] According to rail periodical Railway Gazette, NTV was initially challenged to achieve a viable return on investment until passenger numbers increased.

[17] Just as NTV's customer numbers grew rapidly in its initial five years, Italian demand for high-speed rail travel in general has doubled in the same time period.

[16] By the late 2010s, NTV was considering launching services outside of Italy; Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the company's chairman, has stated that possibly future markets for the firm include Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom.

[16] According to Giuricin, the future of such ambitions on the part of NTV and other private operators is dependent upon the establishment of an appropriate, stable, and clear regulatory environment, particularly in regards to track access charges.

[17] These additional units would be from Alstom's Avelia Pendolino family, the maximum speed of which being approximately 50 km/h slower than NTV's existing AGVs.

[39] On 3 October 2013, the first of NTV's Pendolino was publicly presented at the Expo Ferroviaria exhibition in Milan, by which point the trainset was participating in certification trials ahead of entering passenger service.