A demand responsive transport service for residents south of Swaffham and an online application for scheduling and booking

Tender description

Norfolk County Council wishes to procure a fully digitised demand responsive transport service, with automatic and optimised route scheduling, for residents south of the market town of Swaffham in west Norfolk, to access services in the town and beyond. The proposed transport service will cover an area of approximately 85 square miles, 7000+ residents and over 20 villages and hamlets, to improve accessibility and connectivity. The service is expected to run from 0700 – 1900, Monday to Saturday.The Council also wishes to procure an online application for the provider to plan the journeys and for passengers to book and pay for their journeys. Lot 1: Demand responsive transport service Norfolk County Council wishes to procure a fully digitised demand responsive transport service, with automatic and optimised route scheduling, for residents south of the market town of Swaffham in west Norfolk, to access services in the town and beyond. The proposed transport service will cover an area of approximately 85 square miles, 7000+ residents and over 20 villages and hamlets, to improve accessibility and connectivity. The service is expected to run from 0700 – 1900, Monday to Saturday.The service will require different booking options and the service provider will need to offer a telephone booking service and accept online bookings via the application in Lot 2.There is funding available for a vehicle, which could be procured by the provider or by the Council. The contract will be awarded for 4 years, which is the length of the trial for which we have been allocated DfT funding, with an option to extend to 8 years. It is expected that the successful bidder will engage with Norfolk County Council and local stakeholders to endeavour to make the service commercially sustainable after this 4 year period The service start is provisionally set at Jan 2022. We would like to discuss this opportunity with operators via a 1-2-1 Teams meeting before we finalise the specification. Please contact Sean Asplin via email (sean.asplin@norfolk.go.uk) by noon on Wednesday 26 May if you would like to meet with us providing the email addresses of your attendees and their availability w/c 7 June 2021. Lot 2: Online transport application to plan journeys and take bookings and payments Norfolk County Council is seeking to award a contract for an online application to support the demand response transport service in the Swaffham area. The application should already be commercially available with an established customer base (we are not seeking to procure any software development).The solution should include functionality to:(1) manage the operation of the service (e.g. managing key stop and road information);(2) allow passengers to plan, book, update and pay for journeys in advance (one-off and regular journeys) and indicate any special requirements (e.g. wheel chair user, specific time requirements); (3) offer a range of ticket options; (4) provide comprehensive information to the passenger on their booking (e.g. pick-up time, delays) via the app and SMS;(5) provide dynamic dispatch and routing to optimise the service based on bookings received and using real-time information on traffic and connecting services;(6) allow the driver to log on/off, access route and passenger information and contact passengers/operations staff.The solution should also be able to integrate with other information systems (e.g. other bus services and ticket machines of other operators) and have a reporting facility with the ability to download data for analysis in other tools.The main aim of offering this technology is to incentivise people to use the service so it needs to be easy to use. It must be able to run on a range of devices, which potential passengers may have.We would like to discuss this opportunity with potential apps providers before finalising the specification. If you would be interested in attending a 1-2-1 teams meeting w/c 7 June, please email sean.asplin@norfolk.gov.uk by noon on Wednesday 26 May providing the email addresses on your attendees and their availability. We would also be interested in seeing a short demo of your app.