I have the websites that people were kind enough to direct me to, but I'm not sure how to determine the best/most cost effective trains to travel on. Can anyone explain the things I need to consider when choosing trains for this trip? Thanks!

What you need to consider

1. departure time - when do you want to leave Venice?

2. # connections/changes. You want 0 changes on this route.

3. total travel time
ES trains are faster than IC/EC or R (regional trains). On this route there won't be much difference in total travel time as Venice and Verona are very close.

4. cost. Lowest = Regional, next = IC/EC, and most expensive = ES.

5. last, and least important for your criteria is comfort. ES = most comfy, R the least. For this 70-90min ride the regional train (R) will be just fine.

Since I don't know your date and times it is a little hard, but I can tell you what I consider most important on a day trip: I want the fastest trains.

Most cost effective? Well, I am sure if you found a local that had several stops, it would be less expensive, but I don't know by how much.

Can you put your date in on the trenitalia english site? Or the same day of the week?

Your real choices are standard and amica fares, with the Amica being less and you need to buy it by the mignight the night before, I think.

There is an 8:42 train, then a 9 that takes much longer. That is for this coming Wednesday. Me? I would take the shorter ride.

You might also consider the class of travel: first or second. But for a one hour trip, second would be fine.

It seems to me that the only way to come up with the most cost effective trip is to know the cost of your time, or the length and cost of the train trip, then do some math.

But my advice would be to simplify. Pick the Amica fare, buy it in advance, and choose the times that suit you best.

It looks like the fastest train on Wednesday is something called CIS. So while J62 is correct on the designations, there are sometimes other choices.

Thank you so much for your help. Here are some more specifics. We are leaving Venice this Thursday and heading to Verona until Sat. when we need to return to Venice Marco Polo in time to catch a 19:55 flight to London. Based on earlier advice from here, we plan to arrive in Mestre and take the bus to the airport. We are not sure at this point whether we will want to spend more time in Venice on Thursday and leave later, or arrive in Verona earlier. I just wasn't sure if it mattered all that much about which train we should take. I will be traveling with my student child, but don't see a discount available for that. Also, hard to know how much time to give ourselves when returning from Verona to Venice on Sat. as some of the recent posts have indicated you should give yourself plenty of time at the Venice airport. Thanks, in advance, for any advice you can offer!