Papers by Jan-eric Nilsson
Journal of Productivity Analysis, Jun 15, 2023
The problem of slow productivity growth in the road construction (and wider construction) industr... more The problem of slow productivity growth in the road construction (and wider construction) industry is well known. The present paper suggests a means for efficiency analysis in one part of this industry, namely road surface renewal in Sweden, built upon the application of Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) techniques. The paper is novel in that it focuses on project level rather than firm or contractor level performance and takes the perspective of the inefficiency that may result from the way the contracts are specified by the highway agency's pavement engineers (client side). We compare 233 renewal contracts tendered over a four-year period via the estimation of a cost frontier, with controls for heterogeneity between projects. Our results produce first estimates that expose substantive differences in the relative efficiency performance of different engineers within the Swedish highways procurement organisation (Trafikverket); with indicative savings of around €40 m out of a total road renewals budget in Sweden of €200 m. We also find substantial economies of scale that could, in principle, point to further cost savings if road renewal projects can be packaged up as larger projects. These client-side savings represent potentially important sources of savings in addition to those that can be achieved through the pressure of competitive tendering on the supplier side. The paper therefore illustrates how disaggregate analysis of project level information can readily be used for revealing important information about how best to frame the procurement process and thus deliver productivity and unit cost improvements over time. Keywords Efficiency • Highways • Construction • Tendering • Procurement • Productivity JEL D25 • L25 • R42
Ad hoc-processen Hur används ledig kapacitet i järnvägsnätet? The conclusions and recommendations... more Ad hoc-processen Hur används ledig kapacitet i järnvägsnätet? The conclusions and recommendations expressed are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect VTI's opinion as an authority. Summary The ad hoc-process – how is spare capacity used in the rail network?
Den svåra beställarrollen: Om konkurrensutsättning och upphandling i offentlig sektor
SNS förlag
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 13, 2011
s paper com mpetition in r mplete separa the entire pas aller ones, str mplete vertica freight an... more s paper com mpetition in r mplete separa the entire pas aller ones, str mplete vertica freight and ngthened, is minant opera mpany, the re e is some te senger and fr ectations of cessful in ach t successful. fic finds that well as the ncial suppor ancement, an Germany. On many as wel ough this ma reform proce ectations. Fu traffic levels
Shifting transportation to electrified modes, e.g., rail, is a politically attractive way of redu... more Shifting transportation to electrified modes, e.g., rail, is a politically attractive way of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector. There is a vivid debate about the effects such a shift has on GHG emission and how these should be assessed and appraised. We argue that this debate largely originates from differences in how the debaters characterize the situation at hand, in particular how markets are organized and which policy instruments are in place. To shed light on this, we start by identifying the appropriate assessment approach in a hypothetical situation without any climate or energy policies and then gradually add realistic circumstances into the equation. Our main conclusion is that evaluating the climate impacts from a transportation shift is a highly complex task in the initial situation. The closer we move towards a climate-policy architecture of the current EUtype, the simpler the task becomes. Given a comprehensive global climate treaty, there is no need for any special treatment of the GHG effects since all relevant effects then would be internalized in producer and consumer prices.
A strategy for the Swedish Transport Agency's oversight of the railway market
VTI Rapport, 2010
The purpose of this report is to analyse Transportstyrelsen's (the Swedish Transport Agency´s... more The purpose of this report is to analyse Transportstyrelsen's (the Swedish Transport Agency´s) remit in it's capacity as rail market regulator and the distribution of responsibilities between the government, Transportstyrelsen and infrastructure managers (in particular Banverket (the Swedish Rail Administration)) against the background of the forthcoming liberalisation of railway passenger transport. The most important observation is that the forthcoming liberalisation may lead to a need for expanded powers for Transportstyrelsen to oversee and intervene in parts of the railway markets in addition to railway undertakings and infrastructure managers. Furthermore the report observes that the procedures of establishing time tables will require a substantial development which in turn will require a developed competence in Transportstyrelsen oversight as well. It is also important to consider the connection between pricing of time table slots and the general pricing of track use. Concerning the management of the regulation we emphasise that it should aim at being predictable for the interested parties and to be transparent to a high degree. For this purpose we point to the importance of a clear policy and an open three year plan for the regulatory tasks.
New contract forms in public transport
VTI Rapport, 2009
The purpose of this project is to examine if contracts where public transport operators as a part... more The purpose of this project is to examine if contracts where public transport operators as a part of their compensation receive ticket revenues (so called net contracts) give the operators stronger incentives to achieve the public transport authorities objectives´. The alternativ is gross contracts where operators hand over ticket revenues to the public transport authority and are compensated for the full cost of the operation. Our survey of public transport authorities´ objectives suggests that the most frequent objectives were to increase patronage, to achieve accessibility to schools and for travel opportunities for disabled persons. We also found that the most frequent contract form is gross contracts and that these are often enhanced with ticket revenue incentives. We compared bus transport in 18 mid-sized Swedish towns with data from 1997-2005. For several of the authorities data were not available for several of these years. We found that in towns with net contracts prices were on average higher than in towns with gross contracts. In towns with net contracts the number of journeys were smaller than in towns with gross contracts. Both costs and subsidies were lower in towns with net contracts than in towns with gross contracts. The users were more satisfied measured by the Kollektivtrafikbarometern in towns with net cost contracts. Therefore net cost contracts do not unequivocally give stronger incentives to achieving public transport authority objectives. A reservation is that we have too few observations from years before a point in time where a contract change has taken place to be able to say anything about what happens when changing from gross to net contract or vice versa. Therefore the differences may be the result of other differences between the towns.
Gamla och irrelevanta påståenden
Dagens Nyheter, 2017
Stoppa Ostlänken nu!: Debatt
Före och efter: uppföljning av en järnvägsinvestering i Oslo
VTI NOTAT, 2012
VTI has been commissioned to make an ex post evaluation of a new double track between Asker and S... more VTI has been commissioned to make an ex post evaluation of a new double track between Asker and Sandvika to the southwest of Oslo. This is one out of three parcels in a package of railway investments in this area. The decision to implement the project was taken by the Norwegian parliament, Stortinget, in 2001 and the 9,5 km long section, most of which comprises tunnels, was opened for traffic in 2005. The objective of the investment package was to increase capacity and to reduce travel time with the purpose of attracting new passengers, thereby increasing the market share of public transport. A complementary objective was to improve the local environment by attracting road users to change transport mode. By definition, the project has met the capacity enhancement target. It is also obvious that this has been achieved by a cost overrun of about five percent. This seems to be close to target when comparing with experiences of other projects. The line was also opened for traffic on time. The major challenge for the ex post assessment has been to aquire information about patronage, both before the project initiation and after the operations have started. The report concludes that the type of information necessary to perform ex ante assessments of the welfare properties of a project is of the same nature as required for any follow up. This should be used as a point of departure for formulating a strategy for future information collection. It is thus reason to consider the sequence of initial information gathering, the subsequent production of an estimate of the social welfare of a project, the political decision to build, the construction phase and a subsequent follow up as parts of a continuous process of decision making and learning in order to increase the probability for that future decisions are based on the best possible material.
Nya former för ersättning i kollektivtrafiken
The purpose of this project is to examine if contracts where public transport operators as a part... more The purpose of this project is to examine if contracts where public transport operators as a part of their compensation receive ticket revenues (so called net contracts) give the operators stronger ...
Journal of Benefit-cost Analysis, 2018
Beginning as a planning tool within Sweden's national road administration some 50 years ago, bene... more Beginning as a planning tool within Sweden's national road administration some 50 years ago, benefitcost analysis (BCA) has come to be a pillar of the national transport policy because of subsequent strategic choices made by the national parliament. These choices made it necessary to widen the analysis of costs to include also externalities and a foregone conclusion was that efficient investment priorities should be made based on BCA. But no one asked whether the political decision makers or the BCA models were up to that task. This paper reviews the institutional framework and practice of BCA in Sweden for transport infrastructure investment, and considers design issues that have been and still are debated, such as whether the discount rate should include a risk term and how to account for the marginal cost of public funds. A main concern with BCA results is the underestimation of construction costs, making transport sector projects look better than they are. Several ex post analyses have established that a higher NPV ratio increases the probability of being included in the investment program proposal prepared by the agency. The requirement to let projects undergo BCA seems to make planners "trim" project proposals by trying to reduce investment costs without significantly reducing benefits. This relationship is weaker among profitable projects. Moreover, there is no correlation between rate-of-return and the probability of being included in the final program, which is established on political grounds.
Transport Policy, Jul 1, 2019
This paper studies E-Sweden, Germany and Britain-in opening-up rail passenger services to competi... more This paper studies E-Sweden, Germany and Britain-in opening-up rail passenger services to competition by means of competitive tendering, and seeks to draw lessons for countries that are just starting the process, such as France. It also comments on experience of competition in the market in
Review of Network Economics, 2008
The Stockholm-Arlanda airport rail link is a public-private partnership opened for traffic in 199... more The Stockholm-Arlanda airport rail link is a public-private partnership opened for traffic in 1999. This paper addresses costs and benefits of giving a private company control over one section of the otherwise public railway network. The project has reduced the pressure on the public sector's budget and reduced the need to raise efficiency distorting tax revenue. The number of passengers has been below expectations. Track capacity may, however, be sufficient to negotiate an increase the supply of rail services by way of extending existing commuter trains, in that way attracting more passengers.
Transportation Research Part A-policy and Practice, Jul 1, 2012
High speed is an important determinant of accidents for speeders as well as for other motorists. ... more High speed is an important determinant of accidents for speeders as well as for other motorists. This paper develops a framework for analyzing instruments that encourage drivers to internalize the full consequences of their behavior with respect to choice of speed using Pay-As-You-Speed (PAYS) insurance, possibly as an extension of Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) insurance. We demonstrate how the combination of a Pigovian taxation scheme and PAYS can be designed in a setting involving two principals (the state and an insurance company) that affect the incentives of commuters to choose between driving and other modes of transport and for those that use the car mode to drive carefully. While the government is assumed to maximize overall social efficiency and therefore wants to implement marginal cost pricing, insurance companies do actuarial pricing, i.e. average cost pricing within risk classes that are homogeneous to the degree that the insurers have information about actual behavior. PAYS insurance improves the insurance industry's possibility to differentiate premiums according to behavior and therefore to target risk classes in a better way than today. Moreover, since our framework is designed to accomplish differentiation by self-selection, compulsory regulation is not necessary, although there may be reason for the government to facilitate the implementation of the new technology.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 18, 2014
This paper compares two approaches for providing public transport: competitive tendering and vouc... more This paper compares two approaches for providing public transport: competitive tendering and vouchers. The functioning of tendering is well known. The voucher alternative means that commercial operators charge passengers a fare and are also paid by the public sector principal for each. The paper establishes that it is also necessary to subsidize quality, here referring to the number of busses. Under full information, the two approaches would result in the same welfare maximizing outcome. Vouchers may be more expensive for taxpayers. The case for vouchers is shown to be stronger under an asymmetric information framework.
The role of economic analysis for investment priorities in Sweden’s transport sector
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2017
Beginning as a planning tool within the national road administration in the early 1970s, benefit-... more Beginning as a planning tool within the national road administration in the early 1970s, benefit-cost analysis (BCA) became a pillar of national transport policy because of strategic choices made by the national parliament. The Transport Policy Act of 1979 established marginal instead of average cost as the overarching principle for pricing of transport. The subsequent 1988 Act separated rail infrastructure from train-service provision. Both policy updates made it necessary to widen the analysis of costs to include also externalities and a foregone conclusion was that efficient investment priorities should be made based on BCA. But no one asked whether the political decision makers or the BCA models were apt to that task. This paper reviews the current state of BCA for transport infrastructure investment and considers design issues that have been and still are debated, also providing a benchmark description of how these issues have been addressed elsewhere. Moreover, the role of BCA as a platform for prioritization of investment project is reviewed.
Hur väl fungerar försäkringsbranschen
Ekonomisk Debatt, 2015
Ekonomisk teori visar hur forsakringssystem kan bidra till okad valfard. Men den visar ocksa att ... more Ekonomisk teori visar hur forsakringssystem kan bidra till okad valfard. Men den visar ocksa att det finns granser for hur mycket trygghet vi kan eller bor skaffa oss genom forsakringar. Med unika ...
VTI Rapport, 2013
Swedens market for public transport, both bus and rail, was opened for entry in January 2012. Any... more Swedens market for public transport, both bus and rail, was opened for entry in January 2012. Any fit, willing and able operator is entitled to provide services on a commercial basis. During the first year after market opening, little has happened. The report concludes that it is not reasonable to expect much further entry. The reason is that a commercial entrant has to compete with the existing service provider who only charges the customers half the costs for running buses or trains. The rigidity of the current tendered system and the gross cost contracts used makes it relevant to consider alternatives to tendering. A comprehensive voucher approach-which inter alia is used in Sweden's schooling system as well as in primary health care-would be one option. In this system, operators are given complete freedom to design routing, frequency, charges etc. The public sector intervenes by way of a subsidy per passenger, meaning that the (value of) demand from the perspective of an operator is higher than from the users' point of view. The report makes a first analysis of this system in order to understand the incentives that this system design would create. The overall conclusion is that a broader study which in more detail is able to address issues which have not been handled in this very preliminary analysis should be commissioned. The natural next step, if a second desk study would point to a welfare enhancing potential of the system, would be to test the approach under controlled circumstances, for instance in one of the regions.
Offentlig-privat samverkan kring infrastruktur-en forskningsöversikt Referat (bakgrund, syfte, me... more Offentlig-privat samverkan kring infrastruktur-en forskningsöversikt Referat (bakgrund, syfte, metod, resultat) max 200 ord: Trafikutskottet beslutade vid sammanträde den 13 februari 2007 att ta fram en forskningsöversikt om offentlig-privat samverkan (OPS). Syftet med översikten är i första hand att utskottet ska kunna ta del av de erfarenheter och forskningsrön som finns av genomförda OPS-projekt inom väg-och järnvägsområdet inför riksdagens beslut om infrastrukturinvesteringar våren 2008.
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Papers by Jan-eric Nilsson