Adapting to liberalization: government procurement of interregional passenger transports in Sweden, 1989

Adapting to liberalization: government procurement of interregional passenger transports in Sweden, 1989–2008

Eriksson, Martin / Pettersson, Thomas

Highlights ► We study transport liberalization and its consequences for procurement of passenger traffic in Sweden from 1989 to 2008. ► We focus on the development within the sparsely populated areas. ► Procured railway traffic increased slightly per population share. ► Procured airline traffic increased substantially in absolute figures. ► We find that the new procurement policies allowed for a reproduction of certain elements in the previous policy.

Abstract This article investigates how the last two decades of Swedish deregulation and liberalization of railways and airlines have affected the government procurement of interregional passenger transports in sparsely populated areas. Regarding railways, our investigation shows that the area traditionally targeted for regional policy received in 2008 slightly more government procured traffic in personal kilometers per population share than in 1989. As for civil aviation, the number of passengers travelling between the Stockholm-Arlanda airport and airports in the regional development area had increased substantially during the same period. This continuity of territorial cohesion suggests that while the new procurement policies were based on a general ambition to deregulate and liberalize the markets, they still allowed for a reproduction and assimilation of certain elements in the previous policy.