Sweden’s Trafikverket has come up with an action plan it hopes will halve the number of delays across the country’s rail network within the next five years.
The authority hopes to improve the punctuality of passenger services from the 90.3 per cent recorded in 2014 to 95 per cent by 2020.
Trafikverket says that by identifying eight areas that contribute to 80 per cent of all disruption on the network it believes it will be able to “eliminate many thousands of hours of delay”.
Areas identified include taking steps to reduce vehicle and infrastructure failures and lessening the number of delays caused by lack of traffic and resource planning.
Trafikverket said there would be increased cooperation with bordering countries, with a particular focus on the Öresund Link – the cause of many delays.
The action plan will also include putting up fencing and increasing CCTV coverage along particularly “vulnerable” parts of the network.
Tommy Jonsson, deputy head of planning at Trafikverket, said: “In recent years, several major initiatives have been taken which have yielded positive results. But the lasting effects have been difficult to reach.”
Around 370,000 people travel on Sweden’s railways every day. In the first part of this year, 92.5 per cent of passenger trains had arrived on time.
Conversely, freight performance was down from 78.1 per cent in 2014 to 76.5 per cent by May 2015.
