Its primary responsibility was to organise building and maintenance of the road network in Sweden.

In 1993 the National Road Safety Administration (Trafiksäkerhetsverket) was merged into SRA.

In 2009 the responsibility for the vehicle register and issuing of drivers' licenses,[1] was moved to a new authority, Transportstyrelsen.

At the same time the department for the actual road work was separated from Vägverket into a government owned company, called Svevia.

For a number of year this department, then called Vägverket Produktion, was a profit-making organisation competing with private companies.