This paper reports on an assignment commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration (TRV). The assignment was to map how other national road authorities in Europe use — describe, implement and follow up — on the term and concept of a road service. After a literature study, eight European countries (Cyprus, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Luxemburg, Croatia, the Netherlands and Germany) were contacted. The results suggest that in Europe, just like in Sweden, the road authorities develop direct, indirect and other functions needed but the concept of road service is not used. To examine the possibility of introducing road service as a unifying concept for functions provided by road authorities, a follow-up study was conducted. The results from three countries (the Netherlands, Cyprus and Iceland) show that these road authorities are almost exclusively responsible for the road use by providing different groups of road users access to roads and rest areas while the remaining direct, indirect and other functions are provided by other governmental or private actors. The Swedish model, with TRV being responsible on a national level both for the different transport modes and for different types of functions, creates a unique possibility to introduce the concept of road service and to describe, implement and evaluate the concept within the same authority. For the concept to be introduced and used in a uniform manner throughout TRV a rigorous amount of internal coordination is, however, required. (Author/publisher)
Abstract