Vägverket aims for the magic forty per cent

Founded in 1841 as the Royal Board for Public Road and Water Structures, these days Vägverket is better known as the Swedish Road Administration.

Like its name, over the years its focus has shifted from the building and maintenance of roads and canals to the design of efficient and sustainable driving networks. It develops policies to encourage sustainable driving, working with universities and research institutes, and supporting private companies to improve their transport practices.

Front line
Per Schillander is the organisation’s project manager. He's on the front line when it comes to developing innovative low-carbon mobility practices.

“A policy is nothing if you don’t monitor its effect,” he says. “We’re focused on getting actions implemented, then closely monitoring their success. This gives us real, concrete results with which to influence future legislation.”

Borlänge-based Vägverket, which has 25 team members in government offices all over Sweden, keeps its finger on the pulse of innovative mobility practices around the world. When it hits on a concept that it believes could be used to good effect in Sweden, it uses government money to get the ball rolling.

Efficient saving
Ecodriving is a good example of the way Vägverket works. It began as an idea, around ten years ago, based on a similar scheme in Finland. ‘Ecodriving’ means driving in the most efficient way possible to reduce the amount of fuel a car uses.

“The concept of ecodriving is based on physics,” Per explains. “Simple accelerating and gear-changing techniques can mean significant reductions in fuel consumption. It was an especially interesting concept because it’s so closely connected to money: people are much more likely to listen when they can make financial savings.”

Adoption
Vägverket approached haulage and other driving-focused companies and asked them to trial ecodriving, providing free training and measuring fuel consumption before and after implementing the technique. The results were overwhelmingly positive, averaging a ten per cent reduction.

The companies involved were keen to adopt ecodriving permanently and news about its effectiveness soon spread. According to Per, between fourty to fifty-thousand professional drivers in Sweden have now been trained and the government has added ecodriving to the national driving test syllabus.

Stepped back
Vägverket still monitors the scheme, but has stepped back from actively promoting ecodriving. These days it is more likely to be found waving the flag for car sharing (the agency maintains a website which details every car sharing scheme and company), or working with the private sector to implement better transport standards (things like better engine efficiency, speed monitoring and route planning).

The biggest ones
The agency's biggest partners include Volvo and Ikea, global names which, says Per, are indicative of the growing demand for its services.

“I used to have to persuade companies to get involved in trialling our projects,” he says. “But now it’s just the opposite: we select the most powerful companies and authorities to work with us. To be efficient we need to work with the biggest ones, the most influencing partners on the market. There is a marketing theory that if you get forty per cent doing the right thing, you’ll get everyone doing it – that’s what we’re aiming for.”

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