A federal fleet plans end-to-end delivery and operation of charging points across 345 locations, signalling how public buyers now package EV infrastructure.
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A German federal waterways authority is tendering an end-to-end contract to plan, build and operate electric vehicle charging facilities across about 345 sites, underlining how public bodies are scaling up fleet electrification and outsourcing long-term infrastructure operation.
On 19th January 2026, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vertreten durch das Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt Mosel-Saar-Lahn (Fachstelle Maschinenwesen Südwest) published a contract notice for the Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities Project. The authority intends to electrify its vehicle fleet by establishing charging facilities across approximately 345 sites in its estate.
According to the notice, the scope covers planning and construction of the necessary infrastructure and the ongoing operation of these facilities. Rather than procuring hardware alone, the buyer is seeking a partner to take responsibility from initial planning through to the day-to-day running of the charging network once the sites are live.
For potential contractors, the combination of design, build and operate responsibilities across such a large number of locations points to a demanding delivery programme. The project calls for expertise in multi-site infrastructure roll-out as well as the operational capabilities needed to keep charging assets reliable for a working fleet.
The decision to bundle construction and long-term operation reflects a pattern that has become more visible in recent European tenders for electric vehicle infrastructure. In October 2025, the Belgian intercommunal agency Agence Intercommunale de Développement de Tournai, d'Ath et des communes avoisinantes IDETA scrl launched a service concession for its Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure, covering 1,724 charging stations across municipalities in the Walloon Region. The concessionaire is expected to install, maintain and operate the network, comply with technical specifications and provide real-time user information and maintenance services.
German municipalities are using similar structures. In December 2025, Stadt Wilhelmshaven published a contract notice for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure that combines construction and operation of publicly accessible charging stations at multiple locations, with an explicit focus on user-friendly, high-quality service. The model gives a single operator responsibility both for building the charging points and for keeping them available to the public.
In November 2025, the Département de la Sarthe in France went to market for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Services, seeking supply, installation, maintenance and supervision of charging infrastructure coordinated on behalf of a group of municipalities. Taken together, these examples show how public buyers are bundling infrastructure delivery with long-term service obligations – the same basic pattern that underpins the waterways authority’s choice to include ongoing operation in its 345-site contract.
Much of the recent growth in public charging has come from urban bus electrification. Those depot projects offer a useful reference point for the waterways fleet procurement because they combine intensive use with tight operational constraints.
In September 2025, Bochum-Gelsenkirchener Straßenbahnen AG tendered a Charging Infrastructure Expansion at its Ückendorf depot, calling for 17 charging stations, two transformer stations and the necessary cabling for electric buses. Later that month, Verkehrsbetriebe Luzern AG in Switzerland set out comprehensive requirements for Charging Infrastructure Planning at its Weinbergli site, supporting the shift to an electric bus fleet with six charging points by December 2026 and a further 25 by mid-2027.
In November 2025, SWU Verkehr GmbH’s Traffic Charging Infrastructure project set out to equip its operations with two pantograph chargers for electric buses and 18 CCS type 2 plug chargers, enough to support 20 vehicles. By December 2025, Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe AG was planning for a much larger fleet at its Cologne-Porz depot: its Charging Infrastructure Expansion includes low-voltage switchgear and DC charging infrastructure for 139 electric bus parking spaces, treating charging as an integral part of the depot’s electrical distribution system.
Compared with these depot-focused schemes, the German waterways authority’s project stands out for its geographical spread across roughly 345 locations rather than concentration at one or two large sites. Yet the underlying requirements – secure power supply, sound electrical planning and reliable operation for mission-critical vehicles – are similar. Suppliers that have delivered complex bus depots are likely to recognise many of the same challenges in serving a dispersed federal fleet.
A further trend in recent notices links vehicle charging infrastructure with wider energy upgrades and digital control systems, showing how charging networks are being treated as part of integrated power and data environments.
In October 2025, Land Schleswig-Holstein published a tender for Charging Infrastructure Planning at the government campus Düsternbrook. The project combines an upgraded power supply and expanded charging infrastructure with renewal of ageing electrical systems and integration of photovoltaic installations. In December 2025, Czech company free heating s.r.o. sought to supply and install 11 charging stations together with a battery storage system under its Charging Stations and Battery Storage contract, highlighting the role of storage in managing charging loads.
Digital control and data handling are also coming to the fore. The city of Detmold’s November 2025 tender for E-Mobility Charging Infrastructure Planning at a construction yard not only covers charging points and electrical distribution networks, but also specifies load management and a backend solution for data processing and billing. In October 2025, Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH went even further in its GMH Charging Infrastructure prior information notice for a new operating yard serving hydrogen fuel cell and battery-electric buses, which spans medium-voltage fields, transformers, low-voltage distributions, DC chargers and a load and charging management system.
The summary description for the German waterways tender focuses on planning, construction and operation of the charging network. Set alongside these other recent procurements, it sits within a broader shift in which public bodies commission networked infrastructure that interacts with building power, renewable generation and fleet management, rather than stand-alone charging posts.
As more public fleets decarbonise, tenders are moving from pilots to estate-wide programmes. The Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities Project brings this step-change into a specialist federal transport authority, extending the focus beyond city buses and municipal car parks to a distinct operational fleet.
For the market, the combination of around 345 sites and a requirement to plan, construct and operate the charging facilities will be closely watched. It will show how public buyers balance centralised control with local flexibility, what service levels they expect from long-term operators, and how lessons from bus depots and municipal networks are applied to more dispersed fleets. Recent procurements across Europe suggest that charging infrastructure is becoming a strategic asset class for the public sector – and that the coming years will be about embedding that asset into wider energy, digital and transport systems.
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