Bids & Tendering
Whether you are a tender or franchising authority, an operator looking to bid for work or a business looking to procure transport services there's a lot to consider.
Increasingly there's central funding for decarbonisation and new technologies to tap into too.
Tendering
If you're planning to go to tender for local bus, school transport or network franchising you will need an operators perspective. Vehicle specifications, operator licensing, efficient planning, driver hours and much more that will impact the level of subsidy required.
With experience of tendering and bidding we can assist you to ensure the best results at the lowest appropriate cost, whilst maintaining quality standards.
Bidding
Working out a price is only part of setting out your bid. We can help you do that but there are so many other areas that can make your bid stand out.
Quality scoring in many locations now mean fair work practices, community benefits, staff training and operator licensing compliance are only some of the additional requirements that you might benefit from our years of experience winning contracts and expanding businesses.
Government
Technology is changing the public transport sector. Introducing electric vehicles, deployment of autonomous vehicle trials, new ticketing systems and advancements in safety system.
Bus infrastructure projects are another area where authorities and operators can come together and deliver much needed results.
When funding is available for projects that will move your organisation forward, you may need to move fast. We can help with expertise in bidding, linking up to other Government policies and give you the extra bandwidth to turnaround a high quality bid.
B2B
There are express coach operators looking for operators to cover diagrams, businesses looking for employee transport solutions, visitor attractions looking for bespoke services, events transport requirements and universities and colleges providing dedicated transport for their students.
Our experience in all these areas can help you grow your business or get more work out of your existing resouces.
Case Study #5
Winning Well
Every operator has a rate that they want to achieve from a bid submitted. Some operators have higher costs and yet will still win a share of the contracts being tendered.
We experienced the move from focusing only on price to added value and quality scoring as part of public tendering.
There certainly was a requirement for us to demonstrate our policies. We already had good employment practices, environmental, training, procurement and more, the questions varied and the challenge was how best to put that across in the minimum character count in the bid to ensure maximum points were scored.
Community benefits are harder to define but we developed a selection of low cost options that could be offered.
You don't need to be the cheapest to win in the current system, you need to offer good value and that includes all these societal benefits.
Case Study #6
Electric Buses
The Scottish Government has offered funding for bus emission abatement systems and electrification for a number of years.
With three successful bids for retrofitting older diesel buses with abatement systems, two successful solo bids for electric buses and a further successful consortium bid in partnership with suppliers.
This gives us considerable experience of electric buses, the challenges created by current range limitations and the impact different types of work will bring.