One policy that is believed to increase the rate of innovation and the level of productivity is to move from Design-bid-build contracts (DBB) to Design-Build contracts (DB). A common view is that the latter provides the contractor more degrees of freedom to enable innovation. This hypothesis...

This paper considers the choice between different approaches to contract for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure projects. The need to control for user costs over the life cycle of an asset is demonstrated to be a core aspect of contract design. The more likely it is that a...

The costs for maintaining different track units are analyzed using Swedish and Finnish railway data for the years 1994-1996 and 1997-1999, respectively. To derive insights on the logic of spending on track maintenance, the analysis is based on few a priori assumptions about underlying...

This paper compares the experience of three European countries with long experience of competition in rail transport – Britain, Sweden and Germany. Britain is characterised by complete separation of infrastructure from operations, competition either for or in the market for the entire...

This paper compares three European countries with long experience of competition in rail transport - Britain, Sweden, and Germany. Given the nature of the reforms undertaken, we would expect the British approach to be the most successful, with Sweden next and Germany least successful. But an...

The purpose of this paper is to describe Sweden's recent reforms to open the railway passenger markets to entry, and to address how the reforms have handled four critical issues for the success of the reforms: the allocation of infrastructure capacity; the provision of maintenance and terminal...

The impact of policy instruments supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from road freight transports may seem smaller than expected. Using insights from economics and contract theory, the paper sorts out the (possible) instances of market failure in the freight transport market; operator...