(25 Feb 2022, 6:17 pm)Dan wrote Nexus has today invited operators to tender for Miscellaneous Workings (school and works) services.

An anticipated decision to award will be made by 12 May 2022, with contracts awarded on 25 May, with contracts commencing for a two-year period from 29 August 2022 until 30 August 2024.

As always, there are different capacity requirements:

• Mincap 44
  
• Mincap 60
  
• Mincap 84
  
• Mincap 90
  

For the first time, these contracts will not be awarded on 100% cost, and Nexus will incentivise operators to provide Euro 5 or greater vehicles, with a 10% quality mark/90% cost weighting. There will also be a contractual requirement to provide contactless-enabled ticket machines on all services.

A huge step in the right direction for these services - clearly contract awards are a long time away yet (three months) but it will be interesting to see how it unfolds this year. Without question this will result in improved quality, not only on these services, but also Metro Replacement services too, where some bus operators currently cannot offer contactless payment methods to customers which is a standard feature on Metro itself.

Is Euro 5 an improvement for these kind of services or are they always this kind of level?  Will it rule out some of the independents decker fleets for example?