In practice, the administration and supervision of road management in Sweden followed planned economy principles until the end of the 1980s. Littleinterest was paid to the expectations of road users or the community. Thenational administration of road management focused more on ensuring access to statistics for the planning system. Standard prices were used for most resources consumed, without reconciling this with reality. Furthermore, there were several centralised contracts for the purchase and leasing of vehicles and machinery. Operations analyses were based on poor quality data. Proposals for organisational change that would have a regional economic impact resulted in long, drawn-out political discussions. As time progressed, this resulted in a lack of knowledge about the real cost of road management, in uneconomical use of the inherent possibilities in a planned volume of production, and in low productivity trends. The Internal Audit Department of the Swedish Road Administration (SRA) conducted a thorough and objective analysis of the real operational costs in three maintenance and operations districts over a year. In the conclusions, it pointed out the possibility of increasing productivity by at least 20% (SEK 1 billion/year in1986 prices), a capital rationalisation of at least 40% (SEK 500 million in 1986 prices) and better cash management of at least SEK 10 million/year(in 1986 prices). Further, it was maintained that administration aimed atachieving the overall road management goals in traffic policy could be improved. As a contribution to the debate, the Internal Audit Department prepared a proposal at the end of the 1980s for an alternative management model using internal accounting, where road capital related to the standard and condition of roads would have a key role in management, supervision andreporting. In preparation for the reorganisation of the SRA in 1992, a determined endeavour to develop human resources, organisational culture, management and processes was initiated based on a visionary and strategic document as well as eight designated focus areas, which in practice entailed such things as focusing on customers and results and on creating conditions for further learning within the organisation. Part of this cultural and organisational development was the idea of process-management for the operations and a clear division of road management into products and services.In the autumn of 1992, SRA top management requested better input for the administration, supervision and monitoring of real changes in the standardand condition of the road network. In December, the Internal Audit Department presented a quality and cost-related accounting model for road capital as commissioned by the Director-General. In 1994, after extensive external examination of the model, SRA top management decided that road management would be developed so as to be based on the goals in traffic policy, customer expectations and the model for quality-related accounting of road capital. Only the first stage of more improved accounting has been implemented. Since 1994 road constructions are set up as an asset in the balance sheet and depreciated according to plan. In the Financial Department's costaccount of the financial effects of the reorganisation in 1992 an annual increase in productivity of at least SEK one billion was found. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
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