Tendering is one of the most critical stages of the franchising process. It’s the point where your planning meets the market, and where data can make the difference between an efficient, high-performing network and one built on guesswork. By embedding performance data into your tendering process, you’ll ensure operators submit realistic bids, that you can evaluate in-depth, to set your franchised network up for long-term success.
The 80/20 rule
Even with the best technology and data at your fingertips, scheduling a network can never be purely an algorithmic exercise. Performance data can take you roughly 80% of the way by highlighting historical punctuality trends, resource efficiency, and demand patterns.
But the final 20% comes from the expertise and local knowledge of experienced schedulers. These are the insights that ensure schedules reflect on-the-road conditions: driver shift patterns, local traffic quirks, school runs, and special events. Combining robust data with scheduler expertise ensures your tendering process produces schedules that are both operationally fit-for-purpose and passenger-focused.
Embedding historical performance into bid evaluation and scheduling
At the tendering stage, performance data plays a crucial role in ensuring bids are both realistic and achievable. It helps local authorities assess whether proposed schedules align with actual operating conditions and gives operators a fairer, data-informed way to demonstrate their capability. Instead of evaluating bids on cost alone, data allows for a more systematic view, where service quality, resource efficiency, and network performance all factor into the decision-making process.
Why is it important to use performance data at the tendering stage?
- Operators can submit realistic, achievable bids: By analysing historical performance operators can optimise schedules and understand the cost and service implications of proposed changes. This means they can bid with confidence, creating timetables that balance cost efficiency with performance delivery. It also reduces the risk of unrealistic or under-resourced bids that may look attractive initially but lead to issues once the network is live.
- Authorities can simulate the impact of proposed operator schedules without changing them: This allows authorities to see how a proposed schedule would perform under real-world conditions without interference. It enables objective comparison of performance versus resource use, helping authorities identify whether a bid will deliver value without compromising service quality. Without this insight, high-risk bids can slip through based on price alone.
- Bids can be evaluated on more than just cost: Data enables authorities to assess qualitative aspects of each bid, like reliability, demand alignment, and resource utilisation. This ensures a level playing field, where operators are rewarded for smart, realistic service design rather than aggressive cost-cutting. It also helps avoid awarding contracts that later require renegotiation or top-ups due to poor initial assumptions.
- Performance vs cost trade-offs can be clearly assessed: Authorities can compare alternative bids or models at different cost levels and understand what each delivers in terms of passenger experience and network outcomes. This supports more informed decision-making, whether prioritising savings, reliability, or coverage, and avoids committing to contracts that fail to meet long-term objectives.
- Faster, fairer, and more transparent tendering process: Using data to standardise and support bid evaluation makes the process more efficient and evidence-led. It speeds up assessments, reduces subjectivity, and builds trust among bidders by showing that awards are based on more than price alone. That translates to fewer disputes, better relationships, and stronger outcomes once contracts are in place.
What happens if you don’t use performance data at the tendering stage?
- Bid evaluation is based on cost alone, leading to schedules that may look efficient on paper but fail to meet passenger needs in reality.
- Important on-the-ground factors are overlooked, as qualitative elements like reliability, route performance, and demand alignment aren’t fully assessed.
- Under-resourced or unrealistic bids go unnoticed, only becoming apparent once the network is live when it’s too late to prevent service issues without further investment in the network.
- Unforeseen costs emerge post-launch, as authorities must provide additional funding to fix avoidable problems caused by weak or incomplete bids.
Blending data and expertise for smarter bid evaluation
Performance data isn’t just a nice-to-have in tendering. It’s the key to balancing ambition, cost, and operational reality. By combining data insights with the local expertise of experienced schedulers, authorities can evaluate bids with confidence and reward smart service design. This ensures the franchised network is built to deliver reliable, efficient, and passenger-focused services from day one.
