Transport for the North is inviting requests to participate from suppliers who may be able to meet its need for an innovative product or service to ‘Digitally connect transport actors to enable incentivisation of greener, shared and active mobility across the North of England’. Transport for the North is utilising a two-round innovation partnership procurement pursuant to Regulation 31 Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as it does not believe its requirements can be met by an existing product or service in the market.

Transport for the North and its members are seeking an innovative product or service to digitally connect transport actors to enable incentivisation of greener, shared and active mobility across the North of England.

Transport for the North is utilising a two-round innovation partnership procurement pursuant to regulation 31 Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as it does not believe its requirements can be met by an existing product or service in the market.

The minimum requirements for the product or service are:

— can operate utilising current fares and fare policies,

— can operate with mobility service providers’ current technology stacks,

— must be deliverable within existing industry regulations, including Competition Act and State Aid law,

— must be capable of being fully compliant with Data Protection and Privacy (GDPR) legislation, and capable of being compliant with ISO27001,

— payment card transactions must comply with payment card industry standards, where utilised.

Transport for the North’s challenge statement for this procurement is to meet the following: digitally connect transport actors to enable incentivisation of greener, shared and active mobility across the North of England.

In this context, ‘transport actors’ mean any component within a transport system, e.g. this could include but is not limited to travellers, employers, public authorities, commercial and non-commercial organisations, transport operators, vehicles, devices and systems;

‘greener’ means more environmentally sustainable and applies to either or both of ‘shared mobility’ (e.g. public transport, demand responsive travel, ferries) and ‘active mobility’, meaning human-powered mobility, e.g. running, walking and cycling.

‘incentive’ means a benefit provided to a traveller or other transport actor — this could include but is not limited to a financial benefit, time saving, accessibility benefit, or other in kind benefit.

The procurement process will involve:

— submission of a selection questionnaire from which down-selected suppliers will be invited to round 1,

— round 1 involves a virtual demonstration and written submissions of solutions, from which down-selected suppliers will be invited to participate in round 2,

— round 2 involves a period of funded R&D followed by a live demonstrator and submission of a tender specifying the suppliers’ proposals in more detail.

Successful supplier(s) may be invited to agree and enter into a contract for supply of the services, subject to successful approval of any allied business case to release longer term funding. The successful submission(s) will be a key component of the business case.