Trafikverket's productivity work - large investments require smart businesses

Infrastructure costs account for a large part of the state budget. According to The Swedish Transport Administration’s national plan 799 Swedish crowns is to be invested in the transport system up to 2033.

It is therefore extremely important that the taxpayers’ money is used efficiently.

One of the purposes of establishing Trafikverket was that this would contribute to increased productivity and innovation forces in the construction ­industry. Trafikverket in its role as client and the regulation writing authority can make a change possible that leads to this. However, for this to become a reality requires that all parties in the industry take part, as well as an efficient market structure and sufficient competition.

Trafikverket's objective means that we must give the suppliers a larger and clearer undertaking and thus also greater responsibility for the implementation. On the contractor ­side this means that design and build contracts must be a prioritised business form and that we on the consultancy side must to a greater extent procure at a fixed fee.

Based on this, work is now in progress within Trafikverket to take decisive action if we are to achieve the objective. The work comprises, among others, implementing measures to improve our long-term planning and the procurement of projects, and to renew and simplify our regulations. We are confident that these measures will create the possibility for greater innovation and increased productivity. Together with our suppliers we will simply create more value for the tax money.

Trafikverket's national plan extends to 2033 and with the current price trend requires an annual productivity improvement of 2-3 per cent in order to implement what is in the plan. All parties in the industry must cooperate to achieve this.