Provision of West Midlands Ring and Ride Service

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is responsible for promoting public transport within the West Midlands, operates and maintains bus and Metro stations and passenger shelters, supports local railway services and stations and provides passenger transport information and is looking to procure suitable operators to provide Ring and Ride services across the West Midlands area.

Ring and Ride is the non-statutory door-to-door transport service for registered users who live in the West Midlands who cannot access mainstream transport provision (https://ringandride.org).

Following on from the WMCA's previous Opportunity Notice published on 15/06/23 calling for Expressions of Interest in relation to this project, the WMCA is making available a Supplier Qualification Questionnaire ("SSQ") that sets out the information which a Prospective Bidder is required to provide to the WMCA in this first stage of the procurement process. At the same time as issuing this SSQ, the WMCA is also including the following draft tender documents for consideration and comment:

- Technical Specification - Performance Management Structure and KPIs - Pricing Document - Target Operating Model Qualitative Document

Please note that the maps contained in the draft Technical Specification are copyright to the WMCA and in relation to the draft Pricing Document we will be asking operators to price based on meeting current demand plus 10%.

The aim of this SSQ process is to enable the WMCA to draw up a list of prequalified Prospective Bidders by evaluating the economic and financial standing and the technical and professional standing and experience of the organisations that have responded. The WMCA has decided that only a limited number of prospective bidders who meet the WMCA's requirements in response to this SSQ shall be selected to move forward to the next stage of the process which will be the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) stage using the Negotiated Procedure with Prior Call for Competition established under the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016 ("PCR 2016").

Please note that the WMCA will state in the ITN documents the evaluation criteria to be used for the ITN stage. The contract is expected to commence on 01/02/25 for a period of at least 5 years, with options to extend, and will be advised in the ITN documents.

The deadline for clarification questions regarding the SSQ is 1200 on 06/12/23 and the deadline for receipt of SSQ submissions is 1200 on 13/12/23.

In order to access the documents and respond to the SSQ please do so through BravoSolution, the WMCA's e-tendering portal (https://wmca.bravosolution.co.uk). The reference is pqq_198 and if you are not already registered on BravoSolution it is free and usually only takes a few minutes to do so.

Following the evaluation of SSQ's and the shortlisting process, expected to take place between 14/12/23 and 12/01/24, Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) documents are then expected to be issued on 15/01/24.