Swedish Transport Administration’s new phone system disrupts emergency calls

Sweden’s national transport agency is facing severe criticism after its new telephone system for managing rail traffic has caused delays, dropped calls, and misrouted emergency alerts, SVT Nyheter reports.

Since the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) switched to the new system on March 11, over 230 operational faults have been logged—with one-third involving emergency calls. Staff describe incidents where police alerts fail to connect, calls to stop trains are cut off, and the system spontaneously restarts.

“We take these reports very seriously and are working closely with our IT department to resolve the issues,” said Thomas Andersson, head of the agency’s traffic management division. He acknowledged that while “only a small fraction” of calls are affected, the failures are critical because “we rely on this system for our operations.”

Internal sources told SVT that warnings about the system’s flaws were raised before its launch. The original rollout, planned for last autumn after the old system expired, was delayed due to identified problems—but the agency proceeded despite unresolved issues.

Andersson insisted the system “functions as intended in most respects,” though he confirmed some emergency calls experienced delays. “All alerts have eventually gone through,” he said, adding that rail travel remains safe.