Management of roads and the institutional solution chosen is dependent on a number of factors such as, regulatory tradition, and roadnetwork scale. It is likely that some solutions are more efficient than others,and this article compares and analyses Danish and Swedish institutional solutions regarding road management. The aim is to explore and briefly evaluate the systems in terms of institutional efficiency. The hypothesis is that, efficient institutions have a better ability for survival in the politicalprocesses. It is observed that the chosen solutions on national and municipallevel are much alike, and therefore appear efficient. However, for common private roads, the institutional designs are very different, and seem to bebased on two diametrically contrasting views on how to govern this kind of roads.