Abstract

The European Union as well as governments, not the least the Swedish Government, are putting time, money and effort into facilitating the implementation of automated vehicles. The majority of these efforts tend to focus on either the technical aspects, action plans or the legal scope. However, little attention is being drawn to the practical implications involving the cooperation and incentives of different stakeholders. This thesis investigates the road operators’ willingness to act and their state of preparation, i.e readiness, as well as how their readiness can be improved. In particular, focus is geared toward the three largest road operators in Sweden: the city of Stockholm, the city of Gothenburg and the Swedish Transport Administration. The primary segments of data consists of information gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews, and the participants were selected through a purposive sampling technique.

The results show a gap between the official visions of being at the forefront in automated mobility, and the actual practical implementations of these visions in the road operator organisation’s. The author assigns this gap to uncertainties in incitements, and a lack of monetary assets. Moreover, the findings suggest a correlation between the approach towards automated mobility within the organisations and the actual level of readiness. This correlation is intensified during the second round of interviews, when including other countries’ road operators. Further, the author underlines the importance of managing this gap in order to achieve the strong coordination needed to reach the set up goals. The paper conclusively suggests, by studying how road operators work with such matters in the Netherlands, Norway and Finland, how to overcome such obstacles.