Incentives to innovations in road and rail maintenance and operations

Abstract

Worried voices in the Swedish road maintenance and operations industry claim that innovations and technical development has ceased in the last decades. One hypothesis is that it is an effect of the public tendering reform introduced in 1992. Since 2001, the Swedish railroad industry has also introduced public tendering and awarded contracts to private contractors. This study examines the validity of these claims by analyzing the incentives to innovation in the past and at present. The analysis is concluded by proposals how the innovative climate can be improved between the road and rail administrations and their contractors.