West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has begun the contract tender process for a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) solution to serve the region.
Initially, the contract will be for five years with an option to extend for a further four years in increments of one- to two-year renewal terms.
WMCA is looking for a supplier that can deliver, run and further develop a commercial MaaS application. It said the off-the-shelf solution would be available for people travelling across the West Midlands.
The supplier would also be required to support, manage and monitor the MaaS application. It would need to deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of the MaaS application within six months of contract award.
WMCA said it is seeking a supplier to work with on a roadmap for the further development of the MaaS application that provides people with the ability to plan journeys utilising multiple transport modes.
Furthermore, the solution would allow residents to find and purchase single and season tickets for such multiple transport modes, as well as provide access information on disruptions and service alerts for the various travel services.
The service would also be required to include a bespoke data integration layer providing clean data including from external sources. This would facilitate interfaces between the front-end and other back-end systems.
WMCA said it is not seeking a front-end supplier to provide all back-end functionality or replace existing back-end functionality.
Rather it is looking for a decoupled API-first architecture, which means that WMCA can retain the ability to expose the capabilities used in MaaS in other channels and retain control over the solution.
WMCA will host an online market consultation on 23 February 2021 with the wider tender opportunity expected to be published in April or May.
