CO0125 Bus Information Portal

Summary: As part of the national Bus Back Better strategy, Essex County Council (ECC) are seeking input from the market to inform a potential procurement opportunity for a single branded Information Portal that pulls together useful information from Essex County Council, Essex Highways' Service Information Centre, Department for Transport, Bus Operators, from the Bus Industry and from a Journey Planner Provider.

Description: Currently, bus information in Essex is in multiple places with the user expected to go to many places for public transport information. In light of the Bus Back Better powers, Essex County Council (ECC) has recommended to its Cabinet that we adopt an Enhanced Partnership (EP) with our Bus Operators within a unified common branding. This is a legally binding partnership between a Council and Bus Operators in an area. Both parties commit to certain measures to improve services. One such measure is a single branded Information Portal that pulls together useful information from Essex County Council, Essex Highways' Service Information Centre, Department for Transport, Bus Operators and from the Bus Industry and from a Journey Planner Provider. This Information Portal will be commissioned by ECC to meet the needs of the travelling Public and Operators. The system would need to work across multiple platforms, including mobile, desktop and tablet. It should be compliant with accessibility requirements for public sector bodies and should be developed in line with the government service standard. It should act as a front end, bringing together data is stored across different physical locations/servers across Essex's diverse make-up of Operators and Central/Local government sites. Ideally it would have a private component that will allow Bus Operators to access (via secure authenticated log-in) industry specific resources to run their business, and also the ability to two-way share operational information without needing to contact the Authority via email or calls. ECC are open to exploring the market to identify technology providers who may, or may not, currently be active in the public transport software market but who do have both the capability and desire to work alongside a local authority as part of Bus Back Better.

Please submit your expressions of interest and question responses via Procontract. To register your interest and submit, please see the attached link:

https://procontract.due-north.com/Advert?advertId=dc191351-a538-ec11-810e-005056b64545

 

Additional information: If you are interested in this opportunity, please submit a response to the following questions: Questions 1. Please explain your approach to understanding user needs, and how you will test and iterate any solutions with users to ensure that it delivers value and meets people's needs? What we're looking for is that: a. Adequate research will be undertaken to understand the needs of the Essex residents who will use the solution b. An agile approach will be taken so that the supplier can respond to what they learn during the development c. Solutions will be prototyped and tested with users throughout the development process 2. What is your approach in bringing together data from a number of sources to build an information portal? Please give examples. 3. Please demonstrate how you would link to a third-party widget, for example linking to a journey planner or a public transport fare payment. 4. How would the authority be able to update the pages? 5. Give examples of how you have overseen the migration of existing webpages onto new sites? Or if you do not have examples what approach would you take. 6. We envisage the site having a secure area for Operators to individually access Education & Social Care Transport data, and Local Bus contract information. This can include, but not limited, to passenger loading lists, respite transport, route details and public transport ticket orders. Data would be extracted from the Council's Corporate System (currently Capita One). a. Please demonstrate how you would provide this. b. If you have examples of where this has been achieved on other websites, please provide them. c. Would additional or different licences be needed for a secure area of the site? d. Give us an indication of how much this secure area will cost. 7. Please describe how your pricing model is structured. For example, do you have a core module offering? Is this licence based?

Next Stages Please submit your answers via the ProContract Market Consultation by 03 December (maximum 500 words per question), you must have already expressed an interest in this opportunity to be able to access this consultation.

We will reach out to those suppliers who have expressed an interest for a one-two-one online discussion between ECC and yourselves for up to an hour. You'll be sent an agenda (key points for the discussion) before the meeting and you will also be asked to present your answers submitted as part of the PIN as a slide presentation.