Nye Veier reimagines land acquisition with unique low-code app

Building safer roads for businesses and communities 
Nye Veier is one of the organizations responsible for delivering Norway’s ambitious 20-year, €25 billion road and railway building program. Owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport, Nye Veier is cutting travel times, connecting cities and communities, and reducing accidents. The organization has the authority to decide which roads should be built first, based on a calculation of socio-economic benefits, for the nation and for the businesses and communities along each route.

It’s responsible for ensuring that the planning, construction, and operational phases meet all government policies and regulations. Also of key importance is achieving world-class environmental and safety standards, and delivering maximum value for money for Norwegian taxpayers.

Digital platform delivers transparency and efficiency
A key challenge for Nye Veier is the need to acquire large areas of land for its road building projects. The impact on land and property owners along the route of a new road can be significant. 

Nye Veier is committed to a fair, transparent, and rules-based land acquisition process. But historically, the identification of landowners on a proposed route, and the communication, negotiation, and reaching of agreements with them, was slow and inefficient.

This contributed to delays in the completion of projects, increased costs, and the slower achievement of benefits for citizens and businesses. 

While Nye Veier was making use of some digital tools in its land acquisition activities, these were not standardized or integrated. There were many manual processes, paper-based records, and Excel spreadsheets. Assessing and managing the performance of projects and people was difficult in the absence of centralized data and insights. 

Nye Veier decided to reimagine the complete, end-to-end land acquisition process and create a single, modern, fully integrated digital platform. Senior Adviser, Ole-Terje Mosvold Pedersen, explains: “Nye Veier is a streamlined organization with a small staff, so it’s essential that we use the latest digital technologies and automation to enable our people and processes to be as productive and efficient as possible.”

To help achieve its vision, Nye Veier appointed developers from ServiceNow Elite Partner, Devoteam. The result is eGrunnerverv – or eLandAcquisition – a custom-built low-code application based on ServiceNow App Engine, Customer Service Management, and Integration Hub. eGrunnerverv was launched in 2022.

“The ServiceNow proof of concept developed by Devoteam’s Center of Excellence in Denmark was very impressive,” says Ole-Terje Mosvold Pedersen. “It gave us something exciting to build upon, with out-of-the box functionality and in-built security.”

eGrunnerverv provides a cloud-based hub for Nye Veier’s land acquisition activities and a complete history of each project. With secure, controlled access via a user-friendly portal, eGrunnerverv captures all correspondence and contacts, as well as core documentation, including agreements, contracts, and payment schedules relating to each landowner. 

Live status dashboards highlight the progress of each negotiation and flag all the outstanding actions required to achieve completion.

Seamless connection to national data sources 
A key advantage of eGrunnerverv is its seamless integrations with third-party applications; something that simply wasn’t possible previously. Most important is a direct link to Norwegian Government maps and landownership records. 

When Nye Veier’s planners draw the proposed route for a new road on the government’s map, the system instantly accesses comprehensive, up-to-date land ownership information for the full length of the road. This baseline data enables planners to immediately begin contacting landowners and opening a dialogue about the new road building project. 

Previously, this information was held in multiple Excel spreadsheets which were time-consuming to use and manage, and difficult to share with team members. With eGrunnerverv also generating and dispatching correspondence to landowners, the new system is eliminating many weeks of research, investigation, and administrative tasks. 

Both project managers and landowners can access core documentation for each project, view updates, and track step-by-step progress of the discussions. With negotiations sometimes lasting years, having a secure and instantly available digital history provides all parties with a shared understanding of the status of each land acquisition.

A ServiceNow integration with archiving technology in each of Norway’s regions and municipalities makes the land acquisition process and selected documentation for each road project available to the public. This provides an additional level of transparency into how Norwegian taxpayers’ money is being spent. 

“eGrunnerverv gives us a huge volume of data and insights that enable us to manage projects, and the organization as a whole, much more efficiently and successfully,” explains Ole-Terje Mosvold Pedersen. 

The low-code custom-built app also restricts access to confidential documentation, such as land valuations, commercial terms, payment schedules, and banking details, specific to each landowner. 

At the conclusion of each project, the app calculates the amount and classification of land acquired. Reports generated in ServiceNow provide the Norwegian Government with valuable data and statistics to inform future land use assessments and decisions. 

Finally, when agreement is reached with the landowner, eGrunnerverv makes a payment via an integration with finance software.

Land acquisition process 20% more efficient 
After just a few months using eGrunnerverv, Nye Veier is already predicting a 20% overall reduction in the time and cost of land acquisition for road building. And with better communication and access to the latest documentation, landowners feel more involved and consulted, leading to earlier agreements and fewer disputes. 

Ole-Terje Mosvold Pedersen explains: “eGrunnerverv has transformed the way we handle land acquisition and there’s much more to come as we can see many opportunities for further improvements and refinements. 

“The quality of case handling has improved, everyone is saving time and working more efficiently. We can see how many deals we have agreed to, what kind of deals, how each project is developing, and the actions that are outstanding. We will hopefully achieve return on investment in just three years.”

The system is now being rolled out to Norway’s regional authorities too, establishing a single, standardized, and shared system of land acquisition for several road builders in the country. 

“Now eGrunerverv has been proven, it can be adapted for use in other infrastructure projects involving land acquisition – in fact, it’s already being used for a new rail project,” concludes Ole-Terje Mosvold Pedersen. 

Nye Veier’s investment in ServiceNow is expected to deliver substantial cumulative time, cost, and efficiency savings for Norway’s public finances in the years to come. And with strong, historic, and collaborative links between the Nordic countries of northern Europe, further expansion of eGrunnerverv looks to be a certainty.

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