Ground Transportation (Rail Replacement Taxi)

This direct award is being made under PA23 justification Sch. 5 paragraph 13 "Urgency"

13 Where-

(a) the goods, services or works to be supplied under the public contract are strictly necessary for reasons of extreme and unavoidable urgency, and

(b) as a result the public contract cannot be awarded on the basis of a competitive tendering procedure.

and paragraph 14 where urgency is unavoidable as it

(a) is not attributable to any act or omission of the contracting authority, and

(b) could not have been foreseen by the contracting authority.

WMTL intended to extend the services of the current supplier for a further 12 months under the existing provisions of the previous UCR 2016 and current contract to allow for a PA23 compliant tender. However, this was set aside due to the current supplier advising recently that they would be unable to provide services for after a short time with a significant cost increase. WMTL will need to issue a direct award as a matter of urgency in order to continue managed taxi rail replacement services in order to mobilise an interim supplier within the time frame that services will be suspended with current provider.

Rail Replacement services are a necessary and business critical process for the business and industry. The successful supplier will be expected to deliver the following outcomes and critical success factors:

a. Enable customers to access rail replacement transport services whenever train services are cancelled, amended, or disrupted, including on-the-day incidents.

b. Provide supplementary or contingency transport capacity, particularly on infrequent routes, where rail or existing replacement services are forecast to be oversubscribed.

c. Ensure customers and staff are transported in a safe, secure, and reliable environment throughout their journey.

Without the Rail Replacement services, potential for operation of trains could stop due to lack of train crew.

This Direct Award will be advertised as an interim award while a compliant tender is taking place under the Dynamic Market already set up by DFT Operator Limited for Train Operating Companies to use. At this current time, a limited number (4) of suppliers have been allowed entry into the Dynamic Market, so the available pool of preferred supplier to manage this contract in the interim is finite.