Procurement and governance of railway maintenance services
The Swedish government has exposed the maintenance of the Swedish railway network, and the trustee, the Swedish Transport Administration, is currently Sweden’s largest procurer. This project aims to study what changes, challenges and advantages different ways of procuring railway maintenance creates.
The project is divided into two phases, where the first phase is based on an archival study of earlier procured and completed contracts. Among the most important variables is if the contracts have been carried through without contract disputes. Numerical information describing quality aspects of the railway sections and its traffic such as availability, traffic intensity, delays due to maintenance etc. will also be collected. The collected data is then analysed using statistical regression to generate testable hypotheses, such as if choice of procurement strategies affect cost efficiency, dispute probability, the maintenance quality etc.
In the second phase of the project, three case studies will be performed where on-going contracts are studied. Two of these shall have been procured according to The Swedish Transport Administration’s new procurement model, and one study will be based on a traditional procurement model. The central actors of the custodian and the entrepreneurs of the three contracts will be interviewed to gain knowledge of how different contract forms shape their work and the cooperation outcome. The statistical analysis continues with validation datasets from the case study objects and will complement the qualitative study.
The project is funded by The Swedish Research Council Formas and The Swedish Transport Administration. Bjarne Bergquist, Peter Söderholm and a not yet hired PhD student will work in the project from the Quality Technology group. Per-Erik Eriksson, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, LTU, and Tina Karrbom Gustavsson, School of Architecture and the Built Environment, The Royal Institute of Technology, are also part of the project.
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