Driving forces for rail privatization : a case study of the Norwegian railway reform

Abstract: In June 2015 the Norwegian parliament approved the railway reform to be implemented in 2019. The available information about this process does not provide a clear view about the driving forces that led to this reform and even less about their relative importance. The identification of the driving forces and the evaluation of their relative importance, according to three groups, government, industry players and passengers, aids to the understanding of why it was decided to implement the reform and what are the expectations of this reform. Moreover sets a precedent for the future to evaluate the success or failure of the reform by having a firm ground of what the expectations and reasons for the reform at the time of its approval was according to these three groups. This thesis summarizes the general driving forces in a rail privatization process. A review of each previously identified driving force for rail privatizations was performed using existing literature and various public documents. Ten driving forces where identified in the literature review. Moreover country cases of railway privatization were reviewed to aid in the understanding of the driving forces and rail reforms. To analyze the opinion on driving forces for the Norwegian railway privatization, it was used both quantitative and qualitative method; governmental documents were examined, interviews with relevant industry players were performed, and a survey sent out to train passengers. The results demonstrate that there is clearly an opinion about the driving forces and their relative importance.  Some driving forces are not identified applicable for Norway by any of the groups while others are rated highly relevant. Increase operation efficiency is the most important driving force for Norwegian rail privatization according to industry players and passengers while the government point out improved customer service as the most important driving force. The understanding of the opinions about the relative importance of the driving forces can contribute to develop the knowledge about the reasons for rail privatizations, the outcomes and also give valuable input when investigating privatizations in other sectors.