Learning through collaboration in the Swedish public transport sector? Co-production through guidelines and living labs

Publication Type:
article-journal
Date Issued:
2018
Authors:
Fredrik Pettersson , Stig Westerdahl , Joel Hansson
Publisher:
Elsevier
Language:
eng
Page:
394-401
DOI:
10.1016/j.retrec.2018.07.010

Keywords:

Public transport Living lab Bus rapid transport

The purpose of the paper is to analyse informal collaboration in the public transport sector. Two Swedish case studies, Living lab Uddevalla and Guidelines for Regional BRT are analysed and compared concerning what kind of learning occurred and what lessons regarding informal collaboration to draw from the two cases. For both cases the analysis indicates that individual, single loop learning is the most striking type of learning among the participants. The voluntary approach of the two cases has advantages and drawbacks. Advantages include that participants were truly interested in the issues of collaboration, which created energy and contributed to building trust. The main drawback identified was that in both cases the voluntary enthusiasm of the participants collided with the formal requirements of planning and decision making. This has stifled the possibility of the informal collaboration processes to induce change in prevailing practices.