How are the railways, roads and public transport doing?

In 2013 Trafikverket and the rail industry agreed that 95 per cent of all trains would be on time by 2020. It was never reached. The best year was 2020 itself, with 94.9 per cent, a year when the pandemic meant fewer trains ran. Since then the share fell to 87.1 per cent in 2024, about as low as 2010, the worst year since 2001 according to Trafikverket. In 2025 it turned upwards again. Riksrevisionen, the National Audit Office, has pointed out that nobody has calculated what reaching 95 per cent would cost or whether it is worth it.

In 2019, 32 per cent of delays were caused by the train operators themselves, 18 per cent by faults in track, signals and power, and 12 per cent by traffic control, according to Riksrevisionen. Among infrastructure faults, signalling, track and power systems were the most common causes. People on the tracks delayed more than 10,000 trains in 2025.

When a track, a switch or a bridge is not maintained in time, a debt builds up that eventually has to be paid, in delays or in costlier repairs. Trafikverket estimates the railway's maintenance backlog at around 90 billion kronor. The plan is for it to shrink by 10 to 15 per cent by 2037 and be gone by 2050. On the roads the backlog is to be gone as early as 2037.

The need has grown fast. The groundwork for the 2026 to 2037 plan puts the cost of keeping the railway in working order at 76 billion kronor, 30.5 billion or 67 per cent more than for the previous plan. Power systems and signalling account for most of the increase. The roads need 29.4 billion, 20 per cent more, according to Trafikanalys.

On 24 April 2026 the government adopted the national transport infrastructure plan for 2026 to 2037. The frame is 1,171 billion kronor in 2025 prices, 21 per cent more than the previous plan. 607 billion goes to new roads and lines, 354 billion to operating and maintaining the roads and 210 billion to operating and maintaining the railway. Funding for road maintenance rises by 53 per cent and for rail by 18 per cent. On top of the frame, about 91 billion comes from track charges, congestion tax and municipalities and regions that help pay.

Big projects often end up costing more than planned. In 2021 Riksrevisionen found that costs for the projects it examined had risen by 39 per cent on average over four years, 58 billion kronor in total.

Sweden was one of the first countries in Europe to separate the tracks from the trains. In 1988 Banverket took over the tracks and SJ remained as the train operator. Freight was opened to competition in 1996, and from 2010 any operator could run passenger trains on commercial terms, in practice from the 2012 timetable. The regions procure their own regional trains.

Since 1990 the number of train departures has risen by about 150 per cent and travel has more than tripled. The cheapest fare on the high-speed trains has fallen by around 65 per cent since 1996, while the most expensive has risen by 30 per cent, according to Transportstyrelsen. In 2024 there were 15 passenger operators in eight groups, and the SJ group had 66 per cent of turnover. How deregulation has affected prices, punctuality and ownership more broadly is described on the page on privatisation.

A county pass in Norrbotten costs almost three times as much as in Stockholm, because the county is large and journeys are long. In the big cities passes are cheap relative to how much they are used. SL's pass has still become 54 per cent more expensive since 2010, and according to SCB local transport prices rose by 139 per cent from 2000 to 2022, against 32 per cent for prices overall. Örebro, Västmanland, Dalarna and Västernorrland, on the other hand, have cheaper county passes today than in 2014.

In 1997 the Riksdag adopted Vision Zero: that nobody should be killed or seriously injured in traffic, and that roads and vehicles should be built so that human mistakes are not fatal. Since then deaths have fallen from 541 to 203 a year, by 62 per cent, while traffic has grown. Median barriers on 2+1 roads, speed cameras, safer cars and lower speeds in built-up areas are some of the reasons.

The government's target is no more than 133 deaths in traffic in 2030 and a quarter fewer seriously injured. In May 2026 Trafikverket judged that Sweden is not on track to meet the target. With 20 deaths per million inhabitants in 2025, Sweden still had the lowest death rate in the EU, ahead of Denmark with 23.