Response to interpellation 2025/26:355 on the government's mandate to the Transport Agency regarding the transport service
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
KD argues that the government takes reports seriously regarding stricter requirements for transport service permits and that the Transport Agency is now investigating differences in application 1. KD emphasizes that quality is a regional commitment and that the need for an in-depth basis is grounded in new statistics 2 3 4. S criticizes the government's handling as strange and argues that the legislation is deficient 5. S believes that the government has waited for three years and that people are losing their permits due to tightened case law 6 7. S argues that the government must move from investigation to concrete measures 8 and questions the need for another investigation 9. C argues that the government lacks interest in disability policy and has failed to produce new legislative proposals 10. C argues that it is the government's task as a legislator to change the legislation when it fails 11.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! Adrian Magnusson has asked me for what reason I and the government have decided to investigate the issues regarding the differing handling of travel service permits in the country once again, and what measures I and the government intend to take in light of the results of the investigation that Trafikanalys presented to the government in March 2023.
On several occasions during the parliamentary term, I have answered questions and interpellations from Members of Parliament regarding the transport service (färdtjänsten). On those occasions, I have stated that the report from Trafikanalys is being prepared within the Government Offices. As part of the preparation, the government has now commissioned the Transport Agency to investigate and clarify all criteria taken into account by the licensing authorities in the form of municipalities and regional public transport authorities. The purpose is to identify differences in the application between the different licensing authorities as a basis for further preparation.
I have several times previously expressed that the government takes seriously the reporting that has occurred regarding the requirements for granting permits for transport services for certain groups having been tightened in some parts of the country without any change in the law having occurred.
In the framework law – the Act (1997:736) on transport services – which regulates the right to transport services, it is stated that permits for transport services shall be granted to those who, due to a functional impairment that is not only temporary, have significant difficulties moving on their own or traveling by public means of transport. How certain primary bodies may interpret, for example, that persons with extensive visual impairment do not meet a functional impairment that entails that a permit for transport services should be granted according to the Transport Services Act, can only be answered by the responsible primary bodies.
I also want to remind that there are no obstacles for responsible authorities to be more generous in their application of the law than what occurs in several places in the country. The issue of travel services is important, and I will continue to follow it closely.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Infrastructure, for the answer to this interpellation! It is submitted on the grounds of the government's – in my and many others' opinion – very strange handling of the Act on transport services.
I think that, initially, some form of historical summary is in its place.
We have for a longer period seen a development where different assessments are made regarding the right to travel services in different parts of the country. The previous government gave the agency Trafikanalys the task of investigating which legislative measures could be taken to remedy this development. Trafikanalys submitted its conclusions to this government and to the Minister for Infrastructure in March 2023. Since then, not much has happened with the report and the conclusions.
The unequal assessment of transport service permits has continued. In Skåne, deaf-blind people have been deprived of their transport service and in some cases forced to stop working. Some have managed to keep their transport service, but only after destructive and psychologically taxing processes in the administrative court and the court of appeal.
Mr. Speaker! Just as the Minister accounted for, it cannot be claimed that this issue has slipped under the political radar. A number of interpellation debates have been held on the issue, including between me and the Minister about a year ago. While this has been ongoing in Sweden and people have been deprived of their transport service permits, the answer has been that the issue is being prepared in the Government Offices. It has been referred back – and so it happens today, in a sense – to the country's municipalities and regions. It is said from the government's side that other assessments can be made.
The agency Trafikanalys was, however, clear in its conclusions: The legislation is deficient. This is also largely what everyone else involved in the issue thinks, not least Synskadades Riksförbund.
Mr. Speaker! In some matters, this government is very generous – if I may put it that way – in its interpretation of the requirement for preparation. Certain legislation is prepared very quickly and pushed through various instances. It reaches the Riksdag and is voted through even though the Council on Legislation says that it does not fulfill the requirement for preparation.
In this case, an investigation was prepared by Trafikanalys for three years. A little over half a year before the election, a notification suddenly arrived, but not the one that Benny Rosdahl, Caisa Ramshage, or others who had lost their travel service had been waiting for. The notification was instead that the issue would be investigated further – that further preparation was needed after the investigation from Trafikanalys had lain on the government's desk for three years.
In the interpellation we are discussing today, Mr. Speaker, I have asked why it is that the government thinks this issue needs further investigation, in contradiction to what all other involved parties think. The answer I receive is that some form of mapping out in the country is needed. That mapping could have been done significantly earlier if it were so important now. Instead, after three years of waiting, it is being placed over the election campaign. By chance, the Transport Agency is to present its conclusions to the government in January 2027. As it turns out, Mr. Speaker!
I will now read out what has been said from the Swedish Association of the Visually Impaired, or SRF: For us at SRF, the decision is difficult to understand. The government is investigating something that we already know. The Swedish Association of the Visually Impaired has called this handling a betrayal.
More transport service permits will be revoked for the visually impaired while this mapping is ongoing for ten months. It will have been over four years since Trafikanalys submitted its proposals before any kind of legislative changes are in place. I actually do not understand, Mr. Speaker, why the government is so evasive on this issue. The debate is long, but so far we have not come any closer to an answer to this.
Åsa Karlsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I would like to thank Member Adrian Magnusson for a very important interpellation.
As early as 2023, Trafikanalys reported on a government assignment. The agency noted that case law regarding the right of visually impaired persons to transport services had developed in a direction that was not reflected in the intentions of the LSS Act. Trafikanalys therefore proposed a clarification of the criteria for eligibility for transport services.
The issue has now been being prepared in the Government Offices for three years. Interpellations and questions have been posed to the Minister for Infrastructure, who has repeatedly answered that the issue is important and that the results of the Trafikanalys investigation are being prepared in the Government Offices.
After three years, nothing has happened. People who are blind or who have a severe visual impairment are being denied the right to travel services to an increasing extent. The reason is not changed legislation but tightened case law.
Difficulties in orienting oneself in different environments and moving safely in traffic are no longer considered sufficient mobility difficulties in the meaning of the Transport Services Act. Visually impaired persons are expected to be able to manage their travel by practicing an unlimited number of routes to and from public transport, which results in increased isolation and difficulties in completing studies and managing a job.
My question is therefore: When will the government come forward with a concrete proposal to rectify the transport service act, and what measures do the Minister for Infrastructure and the government intend to take so that the visually impaired can regain their self-evident right to transport services?
Christofer Bergenblock (C)
Mr. Speaker! I thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important debate.
Just as has been said here, Trafikanalys presented its report on the transport service in Sweden in March 2023. In the report, major deficiencies and a great need to revise the transport service act to clarify it were stated. Since then, the Minister for Infrastructure has received questions during the parliamentary question time as well as participated in interpellation debates, and the answer has consistently been that the matter is being prepared in the Government Offices.
Mr. Speaker! For three years, we have been given the answer that the matter is being prepared in the Government Offices. What has the preparation resulted in? Well, it has resulted in that a new investigation is now being appointed to look at how the municipalities and regions handle the issue of transport services. Is it to take three years to land on such an incredibly simple analysis and such an incredibly simple assignment? No, it is clear that it should not. This shows something else, namely the government's total lack of interest in disability policy.
It is not only this question within the disability policy that the government has delayed. Assistance is an at least equally important issue for the visually impaired, and in many of the rejections for transport services that people have received, it has been referred that they should instead use assistance in order to be able to travel with regular public transport. Even regarding assistance, there is an investigation that the government has deliberated on for three years, from the time Socialstyrelsen submitted a report in the summer of 2023.
This is inappropriate. It is an obvious lack of interest, and the government parties are clearly competing over who can be most uninterested in these issues. It comes at the expense of people with disabilities and the elderly who need to have these rights fulfilled.
A survey was recently conducted, in November 2025, where the parliamentary parties were asked to answer the question of how they view the Trafikanalys investigation from 2023. Do they want to implement what is stated there? In that case, actually seven out of eight parties answered that they were positive about implementing the content of the investigation. The eighth party – which answered no – was Kristdemokraterna, so it is perhaps no coincidence that it is Kristdemokraterna who hold the infrastructure minister post. The party is simply not engaged in or interested in solving the issue.
What the government is doing is simply to postpone the question until after the election and think that one might thereby not need to debate it. But I believe that quite a few of us want to debate disability policy in this election campaign. Not least, we want to debate that the government is postponing the question of the primary responsibility for personal assistance and is postponing the question of escort services. One is postponing the question of interpretation services, and one is postponing the question of transport services. These are, in fact, questions that one is not sufficiently interested in and engaged in.
Most recently, it was again pointed out that the blame is being placed on the municipalities. It is said that it is up to the municipalities and that they can always provide escort and transport services, even when they are not forced to. But we are sitting in the legislative assembly. The government's mandate is to review existing legislation and produce new legislative proposals when needed, and in that, the government has failed. In this case, it was clear already in March 2023 that new legislation was needed. Where is it, Minister Andreas Carlson?
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! It is not quite correct that I am blaming the municipalities, as Christofer Bergenblock describes it, when I am simply stating where the responsibility lies.
Responsibility for the quality of the transport service is a regional commitment. The Transport Service Act states that each municipality is responsible to its residents for ensuring that a transport service of good quality is provided. The Transport Service Act is a framework legislation and does not regulate in detail all the conditions that shall apply in the transport service. Some regions apply a more generous granting of permits than the absolute minimum level that can be interpreted from the law. This is also evident from the reporting in the media.
What we have observed in the preparation of this matter is that it differs in different parts of the country. A lot has also happened since 2023. The Trafikanalys report was made during the pandemic and presented shortly thereafter. If one looks at Trafikanalys' own statistics for the years afterwards, one can observe that the number of special transport permits in 2024 was at approximately the same level as before the pandemic, calculated in the number of permits per inhabitant.
There was, therefore, a visible and clear decline in both the number of permits and the number of special transport trips during the pandemic. It can therefore not be ruled out that the pandemic influenced the decline in the country, but since then, the number of permits per inhabitant has increased in many places.
The differences that exist are illustrated when one looks at different counties. To replicate this even in the party's contribution, we can look at Örebro län, where the Kristdemokraterna are involved in governing and have responsibility. There, the number of special transport permits per inhabitant has increased by 24 percent compared to before the pandemic. At the same time, the special transport permits per inhabitant have decreased by almost 16 percent in Västerbotten.
It is obvious that there are differences across Sweden, and it is against that background and against the background of the new statistics from Trafikanalys that we saw a need to deepen the basis in the preparation and tasked Transportstyrelsen to investigate differences in which criteria are applied during the granting of permits.
The material can become an important support for responsible municipal and regional authorities in the work of analyzing how they can develop better guidelines for decisions so that everyone who is entitled to transport services also receives transport services. The assignment to Transportstyrelsen complements the material on the granting of permits for transport services that Trafikanalys has submitted.
The question that I have previously posed to the heads of agencies who are responsible, namely how certain heads of agencies can make the interpretation that, for example, persons with visual impairments do not encounter disabilities that involve significant difficulties in moving around on their own, can only be answered by the responsible heads of agencies.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I would still like to assert that this will be a rather interesting discussion.
The Minister for Infrastructure says in his second contribution that supplementary statistics are needed – that we need new data after three years of preparation time. Well, I can certainly understand that, because after having let an investigation sit on the government's table for three years, one might feel that the statistics are somewhat outdated. That is a view one can have, and I can, in some sense, sympathize with it.
The reason why the statistics are outdated is, however, that the government has waited with the issue for three years. Then it was realized that one might have to do something else, and so a new investigation has been appointed to review the report from Trafikanalys and the figures that were presented in it in 2023. The argumentation becomes, in some way, a bit peculiar, one must say.
I hope that this government is not re-elected, but we can reason hypothetically about the possibility that it is. If it is, if the Transport Agency submits its investigation proposal in January 2027 and if the proposal then sits on the government's desk for two or three years – should one then appoint a new investigation to look at those figures, because they have become outdated? With that type of mindset, this can continue for as long as it wants.
Since it is the case that different assessments are being made around the country; the Minister is right in that, which I will nevertheless grant him. It is largely why this interpellation came to be. Generous assessments are being made in parts of the country and stricter assessments in other parts of the country.
Where I come from in Skåne, very strict assessments are made. A number of different cases have been highlighted in the media, and this has also been highlighted in a number of different legal cases. As I said in my previous speech, these people have been forced to go to court with this, and the court has then examined the transport service act. In some cases, it has been concluded that Skånetrafiken, which is responsible for the transport service in Skåne, has gone too far. In some cases, it has been concluded that they might have been right.
The problem is that the Moderate chairman of the public transport committee in Region Skåne, Carina Zachau, has on two occasions herself taken the initiative to write to the government to say that the law on travel services needs to be reviewed. Right now, something of a – I don't want to call it a game, but a kind of strange finger-pointing process is taking place.
The government says from its side that regions and municipalities can make generous assessments, but in the regions and in the municipalities, bourgeois comrades are sitting and saying that it is the legislation that is the problem. So one can continue like this for another three years or whatever it may be.
The problem is that people are getting caught in the crossfire while this is ongoing. It is constantly people in Skåne, and surely in many other parts of the country, who are losing their transport service permits. Then it happens again that there is a group that has a great need for transport services to be able to live their lives, but the government chooses in some way to just let this issue pass.
Member of Parliament Bergenblock calls it a lack of interest, and perhaps that is what it is. As I said in my first post, I do not know what makes this issue being treated so poorly, but it is quite obvious that these people are suffering enormously while the government drags its feet on an issue that is extremely important for very many people. And while the government says that regions and municipalities can make generous assessments, regions and municipalities, where bourgeois comrades of the Minister rule, say that it is the legislation that is the problem. We cannot have it this way.
There is a report suggesting that the legislation should be reviewed – fine! Then I think the government should proceed with the report. That should have been done a long time ago. Now it has been three years, and as said, it will be more than four years before new legislative measures are in place. During those four years, people in Umeå, in Varberg, and in Ystad will be deprived of their travel service permits. It is actually very, very bad.
Åsa Karlsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!
The criticism from Synskadades Riksförbund is clear, and it is reasonable. The problems are known, and what is missing is action. People – individual persons – continue to be affected, and it is frustrating that someone who has been denied in one municipality perhaps could have been granted the right in another. It creates insecurity and frustration, and it risks creating a diminished trust in society.
If the government is serious about strengthening legal certainty and equality in the transport service, the government must also be prepared to proceed with concrete measures. This could involve clearer national guidelines or changed legislation, but this requires political will.
Being able to get to work and various meetings, being able to get to the store to shop for clothes or groceries, and being able to get to the children's extracurricular activities is easy for me and for the Minister. We get into the car and then we drive where we want – or take public transport if such exists. For a visually impaired person, not being able to do this means being forced into isolation and exclusion, while at the same time our common resources are primarily distributed in tax cuts to those who already have everything. It feels like a mockery to many.
My question is: When does the government intend to move from investigation to decision and ensure equality across the entire country?
Christofer Bergenblock (C)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Infrastructure Minister Andreas Carlson, for the answer! However, I am not satisfied with it.
Much water has flowed under the bridges since we received this report from Trafikanalys, and it pointed very clearly to what was about to happen.
The decline in transport service permits did not only occur during the pandemic, but the report points out that the breaking point came in a new legal precedent that began to be applied around 2012. There has therefore been an ongoing decline regarding the right to transport service, and it has hit the visually impaired particularly hard. Therefore, it has also been particularly important to address that problem.
One can, as a government, always hide behind the fact that the assessments are made in the municipalities or regions, i.e., by the transport authorities. But when we see that it is failing – and that is what is pointed out in the Trafikanalys report – it is our task as legislators to rectify the problem by changing the legislation when necessary and in that way establish a new practice where people who need transport services in order to live their lives have that right fulfilled.
What was proposed by Trafikanalys was that the law should be clarified from a door-to-door perspective, that is, that even as a visually impaired person, one should be able to leave one's house or apartment and get to one's destination. If it is difficult – if the weather does not permit, if it is too far to get to a stop with public transport or if public transport does not maintain the standard it should and it is then not possible to get from the final stop to one's destination – the special transport service (färdtjänsten) shall step in, but it does not.
What does the Minister for Infrastructure have in store to resolve this?
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! I want to say again that I take what is being reported seriously. I will not comment on individual cases, but I am thinking of the cases that have been described where people truly get caught in a bind because they have not been granted permits. I have also repeated that only responsible authorities can answer how one can interpret that, for example, persons with visual impairments do not encounter disabilities that involve significant difficulties in moving around on their own.
If there should be any ambiguity in the legislation, I want to be very clear that there are no obstacles for responsible principals to be more generous in their application of the law than what occurs in several places in the country. This is a regional and municipal responsibility. There is an opportunity to be more generous, and that opportunity is used in several places in the country. I mentioned Örebro, where the number of transport service permits has increased by 24 percent compared to before the pandemic.
There was also a sharp decline during the pandemic, and it is clear that one, as Christofer Bergenblock does, can stretch the timeline further than that. In Trafikanalys' own statistics, we see that the number of transport service permits for 2024 was at approximately the same level as before the pandemic, calculated by the number of permits per inhabitant.
In this situation, we have judged it as important to map out where the differences are, what they consist of, and what criteria are applied when granting permits in different parts of the country. This is because it looks different, and we have been looking into that. In the meantime, it means that people in certain parts of the country are caught in a squeeze. We are not satisfied with that, and we take this seriously.
We therefore place great value on the investigation assignment that the Transport Agency has now received to supplement the preparatory material so that we can map out where the deficiencies lie. The material shall also provide important support for responsible municipal and regional authorities to analyze how they can develop better guidelines for decisions.
The government is, of course, also prepared to take measures if this does not improve. The assignment that we have now given the Transportstyrelsen is, of course, important.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Mr. Speaker! The investigation was presented, as mentioned, in March 2023. Why has it taken the government almost three years to come to the conclusion that the issue needs further investigation?
The investigation contains a number of legislative proposals. It is ten pages of the investigation's considerations and proposals, where it submits proposals for concrete measures in the legislation that would ensure more people gain access to transport services in accordance with the intentions of the transport services act.
On pages 73–94 of the investigation, i.e., just over 20 pages, the development of application and case law is discussed, and on seven or eight pages, the application of the special transport act in the municipalities during 2023 is discussed.
There is, therefore, a great deal in the basis for the government to proceed with in the form of proposals and statistics.
The Minister has in both this debate and in other debates said that he takes it seriously that people are losing their travel service permits. The Minister has today and on several other occasions also said that the question of why such different assessments are being made must be posed to the heads of the agencies. I assume that the Minister is in contact with his party comrades in Örebro and with Moderate comrades in Skåne.
If the Minister takes this seriously and there is an interest in the issue, I wonder: How does, for example, the Moderate chairman of the public transport board in Skåne explain that the assessments there differ from those in, for example, Stockholm? How does the Minister's party colleague in Örebro explain that they grant more travel service permits there than in many other places in the country? What do these representatives say to the Minister when he asks them?
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Adrian Magnusson for the question, because it is indeed in the municipalities and regions that the responsibility lies. I naturally have a dialogue with my party colleagues, and I have been clear to both them and other politicians in different parts of the country that there is nothing in the current legislation that prevents municipalities or regions from organizing high-quality transport services and making more generous assessments in their application of the law than what occurs in several places in the country.
I nevertheless refrain from describing exactly what different people have said in different conversations with me; I do not want to use it as material in a debate. I do not have it recorded verbatim so that I can quote it. But the member and everyone else can rest assured that in the dialogue I have with regional and municipal politicians around the country on this issue, I am as clear as I have been in the chamber today that there is nothing in current legislation that prevents municipalities and regions from being more generous in their application.
At the same time, we see the differences we have discussed in the debate, and I can state that in Örebro County, where the Christian Democrats are involved in governing, the number of special transport permits per inhabitant has increased by 24 percent compared to before the pandemic. I believe the reasons for that are quite obvious.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.