Opening of the Nordic Railway Markets: What Was Done, What Followed, and What the Finnish Workers Should Beware Of

Mika Horelli, Brussels
(This is a translation done by artificial intelligence.)

Across the Nordic region, the “opening” of the rail market has not been a single political decision but a years‑long sequence of competitive tendering rounds, regulatory reforms, and organisational unbundling. In many countries, the end result is a system where authorities procure public service operations under time‑limited contracts, part of the traffic is operated commercially at the operator’s own risk, and staff experience everyday life as a state of permanent change rather than the stabilization of a “new model.”

From the workers’ standpoint, the central issue is not whether the operating company is publicly or privately owned. What matters is how competition is constructed: who owns the rolling stock, how services are packaged for tendering, under what conditions personnel transfer from one contract to another, and what happens to working hours, fatigue management, and safety when efficiency pressure becomes a permanent feature of the system.

How the Markets Were Opened – Two Models, One Lasting Structural Shift

In practical terms, railway competition has been implemented through two main models.
The first is franchised public service contracts, where a public authority or regional transport organiser tenders the services for a fixed period.
The second is the open‑access model, in which a company may operate commercial services at its own commercial risk.

In the Nordic countries, these models coexist. This means that the same rail network hosts both publicly funded, tendered traffic and open‑access commercial traffic. At EU level, the framework is set by the Fourth Railway Package, but from the perspective of day‑to‑day operations, the decisive factor is how competition and responsibilities are structured nationally.

As a result, the staff experience is often surprisingly similar across countries. Competition is not a project that concludes; it is a system that operates in contract cycles, and each new tendering round reopens questions about costs, schedules, staffing levels, and service obligations.

In Sweden, this manifests as the permanent coexistence of franchised and commercial services.
In Norway, it is seen in the extensive organisational unbundling and the administrative friction this created.
In Denmark, competitive pressure was visible even before actual tenders through internal rationalisation of the state‑owned operator.

Sweden – Open‑Access Competition Since 2010 and Continuous Efficiency Demands

Sweden is the most mature example of an open railway market in the Nordic region. A symbolic turning point came in 2010 when SJ’s legal monopoly on commercial passenger rail services ended and the market was opened to competition.

At the same time, much of the regional passenger traffic had long been operated under tendered public service contracts funded by tax revenues, with regional authorities acting as transport organisers.

For workers, this has meant a very concrete change: the work itself—train driving and passenger service—often remains publicly funded, but the employer may change whenever a contract is re‑tendered.

When a new operator wins a contract, staff usually transfer from the old operator to the new one under transfer‑of‑undertakings legislation, but uncertainty about the transfer, conditions, and job continuity repeats in every cycle. In practice, an employee lives through consecutive contract periods even if their employment contract is formally permanent.

Ola Brunnström, chair of Seko Spårtrafik, describes the situation as follows:

“We feel there are still areas that can be further privatized. Most of our members work in publicly funded passenger services operated by private companies through tenders.”

Seko (Facket för Service och Kommunikation) represents multiple sectors, and Spårtrafik is its rail‑sector division representing a range of railway professions, including train drivers and conductors.

Brunnström stresses that market opening has not improved everyday life for workers. Quite the opposite:

“It’s a general efficiency programme financed at the workers’ expense. Everyone is expected to work harder than before.”

Efficiency pressures are visible especially in working hours:

“Working hours and shifts have worsened for practically everyone. Digital tools enable almost maximal utilisation of work time. Money comes first; the work environment and safety come second.”

Wages and Transfers – What Really Happened in Stockholm?

One of Sweden’s most interesting contradictions concerns wages. When Stockholm’s commuter rail services were transferred from the state‑owned operator to a tendered private operator, a major dispute arose over staff transfers.

According to Brunnström, staff were not automatically obliged to join the new company. Transfer‑of‑undertakings provisions existed, but many employees were sceptical of the new employer and its conditions. Yet without staff, the new operator could not restart services.

“It ended with them having to attract staff with pay raises.”

In practice, the private operator won the tender but then had to negotiate separately for staff transfers and improve wage levels just to start operations. Without the transfer, staff would have remained with the old company, where such services no longer existed.

Brunnström says that this wage level has since spread more widely in Sweden. He emphasises, however, that this was not an automatic benefit of competition but the result of strong union action:

“Private operators have repeatedly tried to push down wages and conditions, but this has been stopped through industrial conflict.”

Conflict, he explains, means strikes, strike threats, and organised pressure in negotiations.
Without a credible threat of industrial action, wage and condition levels would have fallen.

On worker well‑being, Brunnström notes:

“Fewer and fewer can endure a full career. Poor shifts take their toll. Combining work with family and social life is difficult.”

Predictability weakens due to tendering cycles:

“Tendering creates insecurity and a constant sense of change.”

Sweden’s main lesson for Finland:
Market opening does not automatically collapse wages, but it creates a permanent pressure in which working hours, staffing levels, training and safety‑related time become matters that must be continually justified in the name of “competitiveness”—i.e., the need to win tenders and operate services more cheaply than competitors.

Norway – The 2015 Reform, Service Packages, and System Fragmentation

Norway is a special case: although not an EU member, it is bound by EU rail regulation through the EEA framework. Its market opening and structural reform centre around the 2015 På rett spor (“On the Right Track”) reform.

Line Steinseth of the Norsk Lokomotivførerforbund (Norwegian Train Drivers’ Union) states plainly:

“We were against market opening. We did not participate in designing the reform.”

Norway held a political strike against the reform already in 2015. Later, new political strikes were organised against the EU Fourth Railway Package and subsequent tendering plans.

Workers were promised that working conditions would not suffer and the system would improve. Steinseth argues that these promises were not kept. Her main criticism concerns the separation of rolling stock ownership from operations.

Norway established the state‑owned company Norske Tog, which owns the rolling stock and leases it to operators. According to Steinseth:

“We now have too few trains. Rolling stock is stuck in maintenance facilities, and new deliveries are badly delayed.”

This affects daily operations directly: missing rolling stock leads to last‑minute timetable adjustments, short‑notice changes to shifts, and staff constantly adapting to emergency arrangements. Drivers and onboard personnel must cope with additional troubleshooting, wait for substitute rolling stock, or switch tasks mid‑day just to keep the system running.

Norway divided passenger services into tendered packages.

• Sørlandsbanen went to Go‑Ahead in 2019.
• Dovrebanen and Nordlandsbanen transferred to SJ Norge in 2020.
• Bergensbanen went to Vy the same year.

New packages for the Oslo region were also planned. According to union representative Axel Fjeld, the process stopped only after extensive and prolonged pressure: multiple demonstrations, political strikes, and public campaigns aimed not at employers but at political decision‑makers.

Fragmentation and the Loss of System‑Level Coordination

The core of Norway’s reform is organisational fragmentation. Previously, the state‑owned NSB handled almost all passenger services, and Jernbaneverket handled infrastructure.

The reform dismantled NSB into several state‑owned companies:

• Vygruppen (operations)
• Norske Tog (rolling stock owner)
• Entur (ticketing and passenger information systems)
• Mantena (maintenance)

Meanwhile, Jernbaneverket was split into:

• Bane NOR (infrastructure manager)
• Jernbanedirektoratet (strategic authority and tendering body)

According to Steinseth, this eliminated system‑level oversight. Previously, one organisation was responsible for everything and problems were solved internally. Now responsibilities are split across several companies and authorities:

“When everyone has their own contract and objectives, no one is responsible for the whole.”

Fjeld is even more direct:

“The reform destroyed NSB’s economies of scale and made operations more inefficient and expensive.”

He says internal administrative costs increased rapidly: money went to consultants, running tender processes, rebranding, new management layers, and contract administration.

Those with the Weakest Position Pay First

In Norway, inequality is most visible in support services. According to Fjeld, drivers’ conditions may remain stable on paper, but cleaning, maintenance, and support functions are the first targets of cuts.

Night‑shift allowances for cleaners have been lost because new operators retender services and replace subcontractors. The new employer is not always bound by prior collective agreements, and staff do not necessarily transfer with their previous rights. Unionisation levels in support services are lower, weakening bargaining power.

Steinseth emphasises that Norway’s exceptionally high unionisation rate has protected drivers from the worst deterioration—but the underlying structural problem remains: the system is fragmented, and the resulting friction falls onto workers.

Denmark – Early Opening and Internal Competitive Pressure

Denmark opened freight to competition in 1999 and passenger services in 2000. Workers’ experiences, however, are not primarily about new operators.

Ebbe Lykke Lindgaard Drøgemüller of the Dansk Jernbaneforbund says the biggest impact has been indirect.
The state‑owned operator DSB has been in a continuous cycle of rationalisation—staff reductions, task consolidation, and operational efficiency measures—long before competition reached each line.

In 2017, DSB transferred its mobile staff from the public‑sector bargaining system to the private‑sector one. These have different bargaining structures and protection mechanisms: the private system allows more flexible rostering and quicker changes but offers weaker institutional protections.

The justification was familiar:

“The company must be able to compete with private operators on equal terms.”

Denmark’s lesson for Finland is clear:
Competitive pressure begins long before private operators enter the market. It starts when the state‑owned operator restructures itself in anticipation, using future competition to justify changes to working conditions.

On wages, Drøgemüller is remarkably positive: competition for skilled drivers has increased wages.
However, onboard staff and customer service personnel face increasing pressure: one‑person train operation, fewer staffed ticket offices, and more self‑service.

According to him, the system permanently oscillates between being a commercial market and a piece of critical infrastructure.

Everyday Life for Workers – Working Hours, Fatigue, and Safety Become Central Concerns

Across Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, one theme appears more consistently than wages or ownership: workload.

In Sweden, Brunnström highlights the maximum utilisation of working hours and reduced time allocated for training and safety‑related tasks.

In Norway, Steinseth mentions growing pressure on working hours and staffing shortages. Fjeld adds that disruptions increase while support structures weaken: missing rolling stock, unreliable equipment, and unclear responsibilities force workers to stretch their limits—working overtime, changing shifts at short notice, and taking responsibility for keeping the system running without adequate resources.

In Denmark, workload appears not so much in collective agreements but in how work is organised—how many tasks are consolidated into one position.

Thus, the effect of competition is not public vs private ownership. It is the system‑wide pressure for efficiency.

Trade Unions and a Continuous Defensive Struggle

In Sweden, Brunnström stresses that tendering allows employers to attempt to worsen conditions in every cycle. This consumes union resources.

Tendering also fragments workplace structures. When services move from one operator to another, shop‑steward networks, representation structures, and negotiation practices must be rebuilt—precisely when uncertainty is greatest.

In Norway, near‑universal unionisation provides strong leverage, but maintaining protections still requires constant struggle.

In Denmark, Drøgemüller emphasises involving workers early in planning processes.

What Could Have Been Done Differently?

In Sweden, Brunnström points to strict regulation: working hours and safety cannot be left to the market.
If profit motives drive the system, countervailing forces must be strong and external.

In Norway, both interviewees return to fragmentation. Fjeld gives a concrete example: when rolling stock ownership, maintenance, depots, and operations are held by different companies, even small issues—storerooms, spare parts, shared facilities—become contractual disputes. Every delay or ambiguity has a cost, ultimately pushing pressure onto staff and service quality.

In Denmark, Drøgemüller stresses transparent contracts and worker participation. Competition can yield benefits, but only if the basic structure is robust; otherwise the system erodes from within.

This idea—that competition can sometimes deliver improvements, but only with strong safeguards and worker involvement—is also the position of Finnish railway staff.

Message to Finland – Do Not Assume Nothing Will Change

In Sweden, Brunnström warns that once competition enters the system, it permanently alters its logic.

In Norway, Steinseth formulates the warning through system design: if no single entity owns and directs the whole, costs rise and workers absorb the friction. She emphasises staff protections—transfer‑of‑undertakings rules, universally applicable collective agreements, and political reliability—as mechanisms that must be established before opening, not afterward.

In Denmark, Drøgemüller summarises the message succinctly: involve workers.

The shared Nordic lesson for Finland is direct, uncomfortable, and valuable:
When workers are promised that nothing will change, they should not rely on the promise. Something always changes.

The question is whether the model is built so that the changes primarily result in longer working hours, reduced well‑being, and safety compromises—or whether staff protections, influence, and recognition as part of critical national infrastructure are embedded in the system before competition begins.

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Interviews and Materials

This article is based on email interviews and written responses from Nordic railway trade unions representing train drivers, as well as supplementary background materials.

Driver‑side responses were received from:

• Line Steinseth (Norsk Lokomotivførerforbund, Norway)
• Axel Fjeld (chief shop steward, Norway)
• Ebbe Lykke Lindgaard Drøgemüller (Dansk Jernbaneforbund, Denmark)
• Ola Brunnström (Seko Spårtrafik, Sweden)

Interview requests were also sent to:

• Rolf Ringdal Jorgensen (Norway)
• Carsten M. Olesen (Denmark)
  but no replies were received within the article’s timeframe.

Interview requests concerning traffic controllers were sent to:

• Madelien Orveland (Sweden)
• Janne Grauer Myrvoll (Bane NOR, Norway)
  but no responses were received.

All quotations used in the article have been translated into Finnish; background information also draws on public reports and official documentation.

Sources:

https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-modes/rail/railway-packages/fourth-railway-package-2016_en

https://cerre.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/161206_CERRE_PassRailComp_CaseStudy_Sweden.pdf; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212012217300977

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld.-st.-27-2014-2015/id2411094/

https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/62450/long-term-plan-norways-rolling-stock/; https://www.norsketog.no/uploads/documents/Engelsk/Reports/2020/13682_NT_Arsrapport_2020_ENG_FINAL.pdf

https://cerre.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/161206_CERRE_PassRailComp_CaseStudy_Sweden.pdf; https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld.-st.-27-2014-2015/id2411094/; https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/1998/09/rail-restructuring-in-europe_g1gh1f30/9789264163478-en.pdf; https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/62450/long-term-plan-norways-rolling-stock/