Transportation in Sweden is carried out by car, bus, train, boat or aeroplane.
Contents
Railways
Rail transport is operated by SJ, DSBFirst, Green Cargo, Tågkompaniet and more. Most counties have companies that do ticketing, marketing and financing of local passenger rail, but the actual operation are done by the above-mentioned companies.
Light rail and metros
Stockholm Metro (Stockholms Tunnelbana) is the only metro system in Sweden.
Cities with light rail (trams);
Stockholm previously had a large tram network, but this was discontinued in favour of bus and metro; a revival of the tram network was seen in the construction of Tvärbanan in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Railway links with adjacent countries
Road traffic
Sweden has right-hand traffic today like all its neighbours.
Sweden had left-hand traffic (Vänstertrafik in Swedish) from approximately 1736 and continued to do so until 1967. Despite this virtually all cars in Sweden were actually left-hand drive and the neighbouring Nordic countries already drove on the right, leading to mistakes by visitors. The Swedish voters rejected a change to driving on the right in a referendum held in 1955.
Nevertheless, in 1963 the Riksdag passed legislation ordering the switch to right-hand traffic. The changeover took place on a Sunday morning at 5am on September 3, 1967, which was known in Swedish as Dagen H (H-Day), the 'H' standing for Högertrafik or right-hand traffic.
Since Swedish cars were left-hand drive, experts had suggested that changing to driving on the right would reduce accidents, because drivers would have a better view of the road ahead. Indeed, fatal car-to-car and car-to-pedestrian accidents did drop sharply as a result. This was likely due to drivers initially being more careful and because of the initially very low speed limits, since accident rates soon returned to nearly the same as earlier.
Total roadways: 572,900 km, as of 2009.
Motorways
Motorways run through Sweden, Denmark and over the Öresund Bridge to Stockholm, Gothenburg, Uppsala and Uddevalla. The system of motorways is still being extended. The longest continuous motorways are Värnamo-Gävle (E4; 585 km) and Rabbalshede-Vellinge (E6; 412 km; will by 2013 be extended so the motorway between Trelleborg and Oslo in Norway will be completed).
Ports and harbours
Merchant marine
Airports
Airports - with paved runways
(Official figures. A great number of wartime airfields exist with various lengths, usually built into roads, and are usually less than 1000 m long)