Tender: Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising Contract Management System with Performance Payment Calculator

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority is seeking a supplier for a Bus Franchising Contract Management System (CMS) with a combined Performance Payment Calculator (PPC) to support taking control of the region’s bus network and to award and monitor operator contracts. The CMS must be fully operational and ready for go-live by 1 August 2026 (minimum), with an ideal operational date in June/July 2026, ahead of the Bus Franchising service go-live on 6 September 2026. The authority requires contract management for franchise business-as-usual (new/change/cancel), handling temporary, emergency and permanent contract changes, an excellent UI with maximum automation, ability to ingest bus timetable data in TxC format, logging of breaches and fixed penalties, and provision of data export and dashboards. The PPC must hold and refresh indexed elements used in payment calculations, integrate with AVL data to calculate Indexed Lost Mileage (as approved by LCRCA), log Excusing Events and exclusions, calculate bonuses/deductions for start point punctuality, intermediate point punctuality, vehicle compliance, customer complaints, breaches, partnering & growth and patronage elements, calculate service payments in line with the payment schedule and performance adjustments, log miscellaneous payments, create self-billing invoices, support approval and authorisation by different roles, and integrate with a payment system. LCRCA currently operates an existing CMS used for approximately 331 supported contracts across 16 operators (in operation for ~4 years) and notes that the current CMS is not used for the commercial network (approximately 240,000 trips per month).