TITLE:
Transport Policy—The Perspective of Swedish Stakeholders
AUTHORS:
Hilda Karlsson, Rickard Bergqvist, Lars Brigelius
KEYWORDS:
Transport Policy, Fees, Regulation, Stakeholder Analysis, Sweden
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.4 No.3,
July
24,
2014
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.