Digital Payment - Car Parking Services

Northern Trains Limited considers that a direct award is permissible under Schedule 5, Section 6 of the Procurement Act 2023 on the basis that the National Parking Platform (NPP) is the only supplier capable of delivering the required service.

The NPP is uniquely able to provide the essential technical function of aggregating multiple parking payment service providers into a single interoperable platform, thereby enabling users to pay for parking via a wide range of parking applications. The Department for Transport (DfT) is granting to the NPP the intellectual property and associated assets necessary to operate the platform, all of which were originally developed under DfT commission. No other supplier benefits from this grant, nor has any other supplier independently undertaken the work required to develop a comparable platform.

In addition, no alternative provider has, or is reasonably capable of securing, the required cooperation of the main parking service providers, whose participation is integral to the governance, operation, and continued viability of the NPP. Without such cooperation, a competing aggregator cannot feasibly be created. The only possible alternative would be for the Contracting Authority to contract with a single parking payment service provider, this does not constitute a reasonable alternative, as it does not offer the multi provider operability, technical functionality, or market wide integration provided exclusively by the NPP. Northern Trains Limited is therefore satisfied that NPP is the only supplier capable of providing the services required and that no reasonable alternatives exist.