Private-Public Partnership for low volume roads: the Swedish Private Roads Associations

This paper explains how private road associations (PRAs) manage two thirds of the road network in Sweden. They manage the roads at less cost and with better results than the Government road agencies. In fact, the PRAs perform so well that some urban municipalities request the associations to manage the municipal roads which connect to the private roads. There are also PRAs that are responsible for ferry services, for example in the Stockholm archipelago. The author goes on to consider the low volume road challenge, a legal tradition of community road management in Sweden, and private road associations.