Gross contracts appear to be the most common contract form for procured public transport in Sweden and elsewhere. This contract form, it has been argued, gives weak incentives for operators to deliver the desired quality level. Therefore many procuring public transport authorities amend...

Simulations of net cost contracts augmented with a subsidy per passenger for public transport bus operators in Sweden indicate that such contracts may shift the operators profit maximising price and frequency combination in a direction that yields an increased patronage. The calculations suggest...

The first railway package is being recast by the legislative bodies of the European Union. One point of departure in this paper is how Swedish agencies treat issues concerning marginal cost based charges, financing charges and allocation of scarce capacity and it discusses these issues from a...

In many urban areas in the world zone systems are used for public transport fares. Such systems may approximately accord with economically efficient pricing. The reason is that zones can vary with size and location so that prices can approximately reflect the social marginal costs of journeys.

This chapter analyses appropriate regulatory instruments for public transport markets under monopoly and competition, respectively. For the monopoly case, the operator chooses too low supply, compared to welfare optimum. In contrast, for the competition case the operators choose too high supply,...

This workshop considered the wider public policy goals of a range of transport interventions. Particular attention was paid to assessing the role of integration of the different components of the transport system and of the integration of transport with other economic sectors. This assessment...

This paper compares two approaches for providing public transport: competitive tendering and vouchers. The functioning of tendering is well known. The voucher alternative means that commercial operators charge passengers a fare and are also paid by the public sector principal for each. The paper...

The objective of this paper is to analyse how the use of privately owned cars in Sweden varies across a number of background parameters including fuel price, disposable income, car purchase cost index, children over 18, employment and the car owners’ distance to work. These factors are...

The purpose of this paper is to describe Sweden's recent reforms to open the railway passenger markets to entry, and to address how the reforms have handled four critical issues for the success of the reforms: the allocation of infrastructure capacity; the provision of maintenance and terminal...

Civil servants in governmental agencies regularly both propose environmental policies for the elected politicians and make own decisions. In making these decisions they may be influenced by legal norms, agency policy and culture, professional norms acquired through education as well as personal...