It has been stationary on E22 since Wednesday morning. But Bengt Olsson, press manager at the Swedish Transport Administration, hopes that the problem will be solved relatively soon.
– We hope to start a new day tomorrow with a drivable road. But it is a loose forecast, he says.
According to Bengt Olsson, the fact that it has become such a monster queue is mostly due to the unpredictable weather. High winds, snow and slippery conditions have not only made the queues worse, they have also made it difficult to get to the scene to help.
But what caused the queue, according to Bengt Olsson, is that a truck got stuck and blocked the road.
– What resource should be deployed to prevent a truck from blocking the road, I don’t know what it would be. And when something like that happens, neither plow trucks nor emergency services arrive because there are cars in the way.
The road could not be blocked
Eventually, the Swedish Transport Administration closed the E22, but by then many cars were already stuck. And cars kept coming from all the access roads leading to the E22.
– There are quite a few roads that lead to the E22. So it’s not just one road that needs to be stopped. And the only ones who have the mandate to do it straight up and down are the police, says Bengt Olsson.
Now the Swedish Transport Administration must investigate exactly what could have caused the situation. Since the work was a collaboration between the Swedish Transport Administration, the emergency services and the police, with the County Administrative Board as coordinator, Bengt Olsson believes that it is difficult to know what went wrong without having spoken to all parties involved.
– We will have to look at which decisions were made, when they were made, by whom, and what effect they had, he says.
The prompt: Listen to the weather report
Bengt Olsson says that it is not only the Swedish Transport Administration and all those who worked with the situation who can learn from what happened, but also everyone else.
– Everyone must listen to what the meteorologists say. And if you drive long distances in Sweden during the winter, you must be prepared for things to happen.