Transport Policy—The Perspective of Swedish Stakeholders

Abstract

Differences between countries’ internalization degrees and between transport modes both tend to risk distorting competition and creating socioeconomic inefficiency. This review examines regulations and charges for freight transports for different transport modes in Sweden and compares the situation with other key European countries. The aim was to identify best practices and benchmarking for Swedish conditions. The project involved both a literature study and interviews with different stakeholders. It was found that today’s fee structure for goods transports often deviated from the views of different stakeholders and market segments. The problem is that it is difficult to estimate and plan well in advance due to a lack of relevant data. Economic transport data are often extracted from heavily aggregated data where resource consumption and production costs for transport are unclear, preventing reliable estimates and obstructing the calculation of marginal costs and internalization of externalities through charges imposed on the respective transport modes and transport units. Furthermore, there is little research on how railroad and shipping are affected by changes and introduction of truck fees. The latter implies that truck fees must be seen from a European perspective to assess their effect on the overall transport system. Other aspects that are important to highlight are the extent and point in time for railroad deregulation. Further, it became clear from the stakeholder analysis that all fees and policies need to be both comprehensible and transparent through good communication of rules and by explaining the fee structures to all those concerned.