Integration of public transport planning and spatial planning in Norrköping : Collaboration for achieving the same vision but with different strategies

Abstract: The integration of public transport planning and spatial planning has become an internationally well-known phenomenon and is seen by planners as a fundamental prerequisite for getting more people to travel sustainably, and thus reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from the transport sector. The aim is to design the built environment in such a way that sustainable travel is promoted. Through semi-structured interviews, a document analysis, and a small field observation, this thesis examines how the municipality of Norrköping and the regional public transport company Östgötatrafiken collaborate to achieve successful integration. The aim has been to investigate how the process of this integration unfolds in the municipality of Norrköping in Sweden in order to contribute with more in-depth research in a Scandinavian context. This has been analyzed from a theoretical framework of TOD, Institutional theory and Collaborative planning.  The findings shows that both Norrköping municipality and Östgötatrafiken are working towards goals of increasing the share of trips with public transport, but when the purposes behind these differ, goal conflicts arise. This leads to different strategic considerations where Östgötatrafiken wants the built environment to promote time-efficient public transportation, while the municipality of Norrköping want the built environment to promote all sustainable means of transport. As a result, there are differences regarding public transport's mission, resources and priorities. As this study also shows that collaboration is the key to success, I argue that collaboration should take place as early as possible in the process, and already at the formulation of political and strategic goals.