Call for Tender Study for Capacity Visualisation

Actual phase: Call for Tender proposals - Deadline submissions: 23/12/2022

 

We launch a call for Tender for a study of 'Capacity Visualisation'.

This study that is subject of this call for tender is aimed to develop indicators and visuals to understand and share capacity issues on most of corridor's routes and examine how they can help decision-making.

This study is co-financed by the EU under CEF II funding, where RFC North Sea-Med is in a consortium under the coordination of RNE, and where this study falls under the stream of ‘Minimal Viable Products’ (MVP), MVP part 6 of the financing.  

Please find following documents of this call for tender, by clicking on the hyperlink below:

Please do not hesitate to contact us in case of any question. All contact details are in the terms and conditions document attached and are published on our website.

Important notice and referring to the terms and conditions of this call for tender: For reasons of impartiality and transparency, all addressed questions will anonymised, and the answers be addressed to all interested potential contractors who received this initial call for proposals, and will be published on this dedicated website page as well.

If you are interested to participate to this tender, we kindly ask you to send us your proposal before Friday 23th of December 2022 at 15h00 CET. After this deadline we unfortunately will have to refuse your proposal as valid.

We hope that you will find an interest in participating to this tender.

Update of 28/11/2022:

We received a lot of questions and requests for clarification the last weeks.We will bundle all questions, anonymise them, analyse them in detail and publish our answers on this dedicated website page.

In order to not loose time, the requests we have seen in the vast majority of questions, following points should already clarify and answer a lot of them:

  1. Concerning the foreseen budget fork for the tendered study: we would like to draw your attention to the fact that this tendering procedure, is a procedure of a broad but simple market consultation, so under the threshold of an European tendering procedure that is compulsory for tenders above € 430.000.

 

  1. Concerning the ‘Proof of Concept’ (POC): making available the outcomes and used tools, results and final report of the study:
  • In order to be impartial towards all potential candidates, we will set at your disposal the results of the POC as mentioned in ToR.
  • Nevertheless, please note that this POC contains business confidential information, and can’t be published publicly. Also, we would like to ask you to confirm explicitly by e-mail (see contact details in the RFP document) before sending you the POC, that you will treat it confidentially within your organisation, that you will only use it for the purpose of a drafting of a proposal to the tender, and that you will destroy all related documents and information once the call for tender procedure closed, on 23th of December COB.
  • Once received this confirmation, you will receive by e-mail shortly after the POC.
  1. Concerning making available of a ‘Sample data’ set of data: Form, data format, RailML, XML, TAF TAP TSI compliance etc…:
  • We are collecting all information and sample data sets from our IM and AB partners, that are relevant and of added value to have a more precise view on this, so this could be taken into account in your potential proposal. We expect to have these data available by the end of this week, begin of next week the latest.
  • Same as the POC: these data sets contain business confidential information. We would also like to ask you to confirm explicitly by e-mail (see contact details in the RFP document) before sending you these data sets, that you will treat it confidentially within your organisation, that you will only use it for the purpose of a drafting of a proposal to the tender, and that you will destroy all related documents and information once the call for tender procedure closed, on 23th of December COB.
  • Once received this confirmation, we will send it to you the moment they are available.
  • Please also note that in the same provision of data, we will clarify all more detailed questions regarding the format, XML, RailML, TAF TAP TSI compliancy as well.
  1. Concerning the format of the documents to be submitted:
  • For the proposal on itself, we do not have any specific template or format, aside from the fact that we ask it to be conform the requirements mentioned of the RFP and ToR.
  • Please note that, nevertheless, Annex 2 Bid form, has to be completed correctly.
  • For the Confirmation of the technical and professional qualifications of the persons , a CV in any format of the your proposed project team on the study is sufficient, and same as above, we do not have any specific form or template, as long as we can make a clear idea of the knowledge and competences of the project team. We from our side will guarantee to treat this information in a GDPR conform way.
  1. Concerning the sub-contracting and consortium: we confirm that it is acceptable for a consultant to form a consortium with one or more sub-consultants and/or sub-contract a (part) of the study, for as long as the conditions mentioned in the RFP are met.

We would by this kindly ask you, if you want to have the POC and sample data at your disposal, to explicitly confirm this by e-mail (see contact details in the RFP document).

Update of 06/12/2022:

We analysed the received questions more in detail. Referring to the communication update of 28th of November, we already clarified and answered a lot of them with the mentioned information above.

Still, following questions were to be answered from our side, please find our answers and clarifications:

  • Are you looking to create standard analysis tools? à We are not looking to create a standard analysis tools. However, if the results are successful, they could spread.
  • Regarding WP1: Is it sufficient that the consultant sets up the databases and processes them with their own tool(s) or do you expect the delivery of the database(s) themselves?à Nothing has been indicated on this point so the consultant is free to use its tools.
  • Are there any requirements regarding database licenses, e.g., is it possible to deliver the database files in non-open source formats? à Nothing has been indicated on this point so there is specific requirements. An open-source format could be interesting but it is not a requirement and will not be a factor in the evaluation of the tender.
  • Concerning the services requested in 3.5, can you provide a sample of the process data that will be provided? à The consultant will approach the IMs to obtain the information it needs.
  • Concerning the services requested in 3.3: comparison between the planned and the actual (operated) timetable, can you confirm that it is not a question of developing delay, punctuality (on time performance) and operations analysis, but rather a focus on the capacity processes by quantifying the differences, and by looking for optimization in the planning processes allowing to reduce these differences between the planned timetable and the operated timetable? and/or to use these actual timetable data to produce capacity KPIs? à Yes, the focus is indeed on capacity processes
  • Concerning the mirror groups, 4 groups are planned (a figure to be challenged by the bidders). Nevertheless can you give an order of magnitude of the number of necessary participants and sessions? à 2 sessions per mirror group so that in the 2nd session we can show how we have taken the group's remarks into account. And for the number of participant, this will vary, but we intend to target the concerned topic specialists.
  • Concerning the services requested in 6: IT recommendations, can you confirm that this does not cover the tools for the path ordering/allocation processes?  àWe do not confirm. There is no limitation. The recommendations could apply to any kind of IT Tool as long as it is related to better understand capacity in the decision making process.
  • Concerning the tools/prototypes used/developed during the project, can you confirm that it is not required to make them available to the RFC North Sea-Med and that the intellectual property will remain by the contractor?àThe used/developed tools/prototypes during the project remain the intellectual property of the contractant consulting company, nevertheless, we would like to clarify that the intellectual property of the results and outcomes of the tendered study will be handed over to us, with the use of it to our sole discretion.  
  • Could you detail the “interesting stations” concerned by the capacity analysis on work package 1 ? (Slide 18 of the terms of references) àNo. We expect the Consultant to involve its expertise for the selection of interesting stations.
  • On slide 27 of the terms of reference, 6. IT Recommendation : is it expected to provide a full tool which can be used by itself or a graphic solution ? à We are not expecting a complete tool. We expect recommendations/specifications to address to our IMs who are in charge of some IT tools.
  • WP 1-3.5 asks for a description of the national processes including the particular interface problems. Quality of results strongly depends on input by the IM. How will the IM contribute, by means of interviews? How capable are the IM in English? àYes, all interviews will be in English, or in French according to the most convenient language for all participants.

Update of 21/12/2022:

We are approaching the last days of potential submission of proposals to our tender.

As a last question we received last week if there was some infrastructure data and headway times available from one of the candidates. As some are confidential, some not, we consider it as a last ‘sample data’ set that falls under the confidentiality you confirmed already. If you confirmed the confidential handling of this data to me, you should have received a separate e-mail with the infrastructure data included, if not, please let know the contact person.

Also, we would like to address 2 last questions formulated but still open:

  1. We received questions regarding the TAF TAP TSI compliance:
  • Database setup is requested to be TAF TAP TSI compliant. TAF TAP TSI is a data exchange format. Is it necessary to be able to export data from the produced database in TAF TAP TSI compliant formats for the 3 countries/networks concerned? If so, can you provide the specificities of the TAF TAP TSI formats for these 3 networks (they might be different)?
  • WP 1-1 opts to merge paths and TCR from three IM. The outcome shall be four TAF TAP TSI compliant databases for different horizons. The necessary work effort strongly depends on knowledge of the data sources --> TAF TAP TSI compliance is mentioned in the ToR. When technically feasible and possible it is preferred/required.
  1. Is it expected to achieve an assessment using UIC 406 ? à This is not expected in the ToR. It is up to the consultant to decide if this is of added value for the study.

As a kind but important reminder, we are in the last days of the submission period of proposals: deadline for submission is this this Friday 23th of November, 15h00 CET.