PARK AND RIDE BUS SERVICE CONTRACT

NOTE FOR SCRUTINY

COMMENCEMENT OF TENDER PROCESS

The decision to commence a restricted tendering process was made by the Cabinet Member on the 23 June 2008. This provided for a minimum service requirement which included;-

·         A bus service linking each of the three current Park and Ride sites (London Road, Sittingbourne Road and Willington Street) with points in Maidstone Town Centre

·         Operational hours to be between 0700 hours (0800 on Saturdays) and 1830 hours on Mondays to Saturdays

In addition to the minimum service requirement the tender stated that operators proposals would be welcomed on various aspects of the tender. This included;-

·       Actual route, timetables and stopping requirements

This decision was not called in.

The Cabinet Member subsequently agreed that the tender evaluation procedure would be on Price/Quality scoring matrix with the bid price weighted at 60% of the total score and quality weighted at 40%.

Following a pre qualification exercise a number of Suppliers/Contractors were invited to submit bids on the minimum service requirement as described within the tender documentation. They were also invited to submit variant bids if they believed a more effective and efficient service could be provided. A total of eighteen bids and bid variations were received from six different companies.

The qualitative assessment was carried out by a client evaluation team. This process split the quality aspect into four parts;-

1.   Offer to customer – maximum 30 points

2.   Impact to environment and transport – maximum 30 points

3.   Income and revenue – maximum 25 points

4.   Track record and capability – maximum 15 points

The offer to customer considered the routes, timetables and overall package the customer would receive.