National Trip End Model Discovery

Tender description

Summary of the work The winning supplier will be required to: • Deliver a report containing ‘user stories’; • Two ‘show and tell’ presentations, one for each board; and • Pass the relevant internal and GDS assurance assessments relevant for a discovery phase project. Expected Contract Length 6 week discovery Latest start date Monday 10 February 2020 Budget Range up to £50k Why the Work is Being Done The current National Trip End Model has been in place for many years and the most recent version, 7.2, dates from 2016. The department recognises that user needs have changed along with technology and there is an opportunity to establish what the next generation of this model and supporting services need to be. NTEM is described at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/webtag-si-ntem-sub-models-july-2016 and the results are published via https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tempro-downloads Problem to Be Solved The word ‘users’ is to be interpreted widely including those relying on model results to inform their actions and decisions as well as those directly operating the software, extracting data and performing analyses. The bidder will explore the impact of potential transport and societal changes on the model and the future implications of this so they can formulate their vision of who, apart from current users, may use the model and how. Suggestions of technologies or data sources that might help meet newly identified demands would be welcome. Who Are the Users Those preparing and scrutinising business cases for funding applications to DfT including: • Local Authorities, Sub-national Transport Bodies, Highways England and Network Rail • Their consultants, in civil engineering and transport planning companies • Scrutineers within DfT, in ‘Local Transport’, ‘Roads’ and ‘Rail’ • Planning Inspectors Early Market Engagement None. Work Already Done None. Existing Team The project is being run by the Transport Appraisal and Strategic Modelling team within DfT, supported by a working group and a steering group representing internal stakeholders. The project manager for the project is Roger Witte. The ‘TEMPro’ application is supported by Atkins Ltd (as part of a wider contract to support publicly available, DfT owned software tools for transport appraisal) who maintain a mailing list where users can register for notifications about NTEM. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Demonstrate evidence of successfully delivering a discovery phase in a central government department and passing relevant GDS assessments • Demonstrate experience of working with the transport modelling community and relevant industry groups • Provide evidence of understanding the possible user groups and ability to identify the unknown users of the existing model • Provide experience of researching relevant digital technologies that are anticipated to be needed to meet user needs Nice to Haves • Knowledge of the existing model • Experience of working with non-digital project teams to digitise services • Experience of interpreting the brief and applying sectoral knowledge • Experience of transparent and collaborative decision making • Experience of sharing approach, knowledge and skills with other team members and with the department by example Work Location The team is based at Windsor House, 50 Victoria St, Westminster, London SW1H 0TL. The winning bidder may work from there or from their own premises. The work may involve travelling to meet users, at locations convenient to them, around England Working Arrangments The work will take place in February and March. Bidders should suggest activities that they will undertake to gather the required information. These activities may include, but are not limited to, organising meetings, or teleconferences, interviewing individuals by phone or in person, or engage in discussion on social media or online fora. The work will produce a report for presentation to the project boards containing ‘user stories’ with an indication of the impacts of supporting or deprecating each type of user and usage. Security Clearance Baseline Personnel Security Standard that must be active from when the contract commences. Evidence of clearance, or that you are working towards obtaining clearance will be requested as part of stage 2 evaluation. Additional T&Cs Presentation may be required at stage 2. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • Describe how your approach and methodology meets our needs (25%) • Provide evidence of experience of qualitative research (20%) • Identify the risk assumptions that are likely to be encountered and how you will test and mitigate these (15%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Experience of working with transport planners and modellers (10%) • Experience of working with national and/or local government (10%) Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method • Case study • Work history Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Is the budget for this opportunity exclusive or inclusive of VAT? The budget is excluding VAT. 2. Whilst we don't have any direct experience of Transport Modelling, our experience has often involved us working with complex systems and products that are entirely new to us. When twinned with an immersive onboarding at the start of a discovery phase, we have still successfully delivered quality results. Would lack of experience in the transport modelling community completely rule us out? This project does not require specific experience of transport modelling . However, it will be necessary to talk with various kinds of transport professionals, including developers*, modellers, planners, economists, traffic engineers etc. Each of these professions comes equipped with their own jargon.Experience of working with any of these any of these communities would be relevant. Experience with working with other technical communities may also be germane. DfT require ‘people’ and ‘networking’ skills to be exercised in a technical jargon rich context. 3. As a business we are well placed to build, or provide data to support building, a new generation NTEM. However, we are not well-placed to carry out this discovery project across the wide range of users.How would you recommend we make sure our approach and data is captured by the potential winner of this discovery project? This is a discovery phase and as such the outputs from this exercise will determine how any alpha/beta phases may occur. It is only at the Alpha/Beta stages that any build will take place. In relation to the second part of your question it is for you to decide how you wish to engage with any potential winner. 4. Have you worked with any suppliers who will have direct experience with the existing model? If so, please can you specify who. Yes, as this is an open model free to download, there are many suppliers who will have had direct experience of the published ‘front end’. Experience of the ‘back end’ is rarer, some of the consultancy companies include, JACOBS, AECOM, WSP, John Bates and PBA part of Stantec.