Contractor Coopetition: The Potential Outcomes for the Public Transport Sector : A case study on co-sharing of bus depots

Sammanfattning: Coopetition, a combined word for cooperation and competition, is a business strategy in which two or more parties within a competing market use a cooperative action. This concept is mainly practical in situations where companies are rich in resources and have considerable assets. For example, one industry that could use coopetitive strategies is the public transport sector. Trafikförvaltningen is the organization that is responsible for public transportation in Stockholm County, along with subcontractors known as traffic operating firms (TOFs). Every 8 to 10 years, so-called traffic area contracts are open for bidding where these TOFs have the opportunity to bid on these areas where they operate their traffic and maintain their depots. For this reason, these TOFs can be considered competitors to each other, thus sharing a reluctance to cooperate. Therefore, since bus lines do not always end their travels in the same traffic area they started, the organization can end up with high annual costs in terms of empty travels from traveling back to their traffic area. The study‘s aim is to: investigate the possibilities and potential outcomes for the public transport sector to use cooperative strategies. The focus has been on a strategy in the form of co-sharing of Trafikförvaltningen’s bus depots between its TOFs. A financial calculation analysis has also been performed, estimating how much the organization can save on this. The study is in the form of a case study and takes an intensive research approach. The data collection consists of so-called in-depth and focused interviews with individuals from different companies. The results of this study show an annual saving of 59.5 Million Swedish Krona in the case of Trafikförvaltningen. This case study concludes that establishing a coopetition governance function (CGF) is crucial for implementing a coopetitive strategy within the public transport sector.