Having supper happy night with live karaoke and amazing food on the second night at Stockholm, we keep moving on our journey to understand more about public transport systems. After a few days here, I learned that the public transport system in Sweden is very well organized and easily accessible with over a hundred metro stations and numerous bus stops you can get almost everywhere with public transport. It consists of buses, underground trains, commuter trains, trams and certain ferry lines that operated by SL (Stockholm Lokaltrafik AB). In 1993, SL began to use independent contractors for the operation and maintenance of the different transport systems. There are many contractors that SL has used such as Arriva which operates rail traffic, MTR which operates Stockholm metro and Keolis which operates bus traffic in Stockholm.
And on the third day at Stockholm, we had chances to visit Keolis where we understand more about public transportation in Europe in general and in Sweden in particular. Keolis is one of the world’s largest public transport operators which aim to develop and deliver attractive and smart transport that persuade more people to use public transport as their travel alternative of choice. In addition, Keolis Sweden is the market’s first specialist in locally tailored environment friendly urban transport with 80 percent of the buses run on renewable fuels and able to cut fuel consumption by 10-15 percent by training drivers in eco driving techniques.
At Keolis, we were given a tour around the company to observe how Keolis in Sweden organize and the company’s working culture. The most impressive thing that I have observed is that Keolis has built a very good working environment as well as provided very good conditions for their employees to work efficiently. For example, the employees’ table can adjust to higher or lower so workers can stand or sit while working or there is a silent working area for those who would like to really focus while working.
In the presentation with Ms. Kelly who has worked for Keolis for 4 years, she has spent time to talk about the culture of a French company. From her perspective, there are some differences between US and French’s working culture. First, the French company do not organize the meeting to reach the decisions but rather than exchange the ideas. Second, it is very important to know what should not be being said because the French are considered imprecise when they think that they have been very clear. Third, the French are very creative and enjoy doing several things at the same time. Fourth, punctually is very important for the French, “Early is on time, on time is late, and Late is unacceptable”. Last but not least, networking and maintaining a large internal network is the key to success. And also, Ms. Kelly has shared some tips working for French companies that I found very useful and interesting, such as decisions are often made at the top and should not be questioned, your manners are important when you work for French companies because they are reflecting your social class and education and shake hands with everyone when you enter the meeting room and begin with the highest in rank.
