LCRCA Bus Franchising Contract Management System

The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) is on a journey to take back control of the city region's bus network through Bus Franchising. The LCRCA will become responsible for 100% of the bus network and will award contracts to operators to run these services on their behalf, with key performance metrics in place with constant monitoring of their performance.

To support LCRCA's Bus Franchising service, LCRCA wish to procure a new Bus Franchising Contract Management System (CMS), with a combined performance payment calculator (PPC). The LCRCA Bus Franchising service is scheduled to go-live on September 6th 2026 and the new CMS (with PPC) must therefore be procured well in advance of this date and must be fully operational and ready for go-live use by 1st August 2026 (1x month before Bus Franchising go-live).

The fully operational go-live date of the 1st August is the minimum date requirement and ideally, LCRCA would expect the Supplier to achieve an operational go-live date in June/July 2026. Background LCRCA have an existing CMS which has been in operation for (approx.) 4yrs and is used for the management of the supported bus network data (approx. 331x contracts across 16x operators, ranging from single school journeys to general daily services).

Note: The current LCRCA CMS is used for the management of the supported bus network data only, and is not used for the current commercial network (approx. 240K trips per month). LCRCA are looking to engage with a Supplier to provide Contract Management capabilities that will allow the LCRCA to ensure each Bus Franchising Operators' service payment accurately reflects the contract in place and incorporates any performance measure adjustments.

LCRCA's Bus Franchising CMS will need to deliver the following:? • Business as usual Franchise Contract management (new/change/cancel). • Contract changes, temporary, emergency and permanent. • Excellent UI, maximum automation. • Ability to ingest bus timetable data in TxC format. • Logging of breaches/fixed penalties.? • Data export and dashboards. LCRCA's Bus Franchising PPC will need to deliver the following:?

Ability to hold/refresh indexed elements used in payment calculations. Integration with AVL data to calculate Indexed Lost Mileage, which has been approved by LCRCA.

Logging of Excusing Events and how data can be excluded from the calculation. The calculation of bonus/deductions for: Start Point punctuality.

Intermediate point punctuality. Vehicle compliance.

Customer Complaints. Breaches.

Partnering & Growth element. Patronage element.

Calculation of Service payment in line with payment schedule. Calculation of performance adjustment.

Logging of miscellaneous payments. Self-Billing invoice creation.

Approval & authorisation (by different roles) for payment. Integration with payment system.