Directorate-General for Infrastructure and Logistics Directorate C - Resources
L-2929 LUXEMBOURG
CONTRACTS AND PROCUREMENT UNIT LUXEMBOURG
INVITATION TO TENDER NO CLAUSES AND SPECIFICATIONS TRANSPORT OF MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IN
LIMOUSINES AND MINIBUSES IN STRASBOURG
4. SPECIFICATIONS: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
1. SUBJECT OF THE CONTRACT
The subject of this contract is the transport of Members of the European Parliament in the exercise of their duties by means of limousines with driver. This service shall be performed at the request of the European Parliament, using the staff and vehicles of the successful tenderer, for journeys from the European Parliament’s buildings in Strasbourg to the city’s airport or train stations (including the Offenburg train station) and back, as well as within the city of Strasbourg and the surrounding area within a 20 km radius during part-sessions or any other events organised by the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
As part of the European Parliament’s general activities, specific requests may be made to the Contractor to provide ad hoc transport services outside the scope described above.
The services to be provided concern the services defined in Article 1. Those services fall within the scope of Annex II A to Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts.
2. SERVICES – SCHEDULE
The Contractor shall undertake to provide a sufficient number of high-quality vehicles and of competent staff to drive the number of vehicles requested and to supervise the transport service as a whole, which must be prompt and efficient.
The provisional schedule for in situ services (time slots and car fleet provided, together with Parliament’s annual calendar of activities) is given in Annex 1 of these technical specifications for guidance in order to indicate the scale of the service to be provided and to assist in the formulation of tenders, and is therefore not binding on the European Parliament. The successful tenderer shall undertake to fulfil any actual request from the European Parliament that may differ from the time slots and number of vehicles indicated.
In general, orders will be placed during the parliamentary business weeks in Strasbourg, which equates to 12 ‘red’ weeks per year. The parliamentary calendar for 2014 is included in Annex II for information purposes and may be subject to change without notice.
The time slots and the number of vehicles to be provided may also vary according to the European Parliament’s activities, depending on the decisions taken by the political authorities. In this case, the provisional schedule may be subject to change at any time by the European Parliament to best suit the new requirements, and the new document will thus replace the relevant document in Annex 1 of the technical specifications. For example, the number of minibuses may increase at the expense of the number of limousines, depending on the decisions taken by the political authorities.
3. PRICES
Prices must be: - in EUR;
- inclusive of all costs (social security, overheads, profits, travel, equipment, etc.);
- exempt from all duties and taxes, including VAT.
Prices must be expressed as an hourly charge per vehicle with driver
(euros/hour/vehicle) independently of the vehicle used and the time slot in which the transport service is provided.
The prices must include two rates:
Rate I: an all-in hourly rate applicable to each hour in which a given vehicle is used, irrespective of the time slot of the specific schedule for the period concerned;
Rate II: an all-in hourly rate applicable to each hour designated as additional; additional time shall be understood to mean any hour of service by a vehicle that is requested in addition to the specific schedule for the time slot concerned; additional hours of service actually provided will be recorded by the quarter hour begun; all invoices at rate II must be accompanied by appropriate evidence (e.g. tracking system record and explanation).
The all-in rates above shall cover the cost of supervising and organising the services provided, and in particular the payment of administrative staff.
As well as the price of hourly vehicle hire with driver, the tenderer shall indicate the price of vehicle hire (limousine or minibus) without driver. As this service will be provided infrequently, this rate will not be taken into account in awarding the contract.
Vehicle hire without driver shall meet specific ad hoc requirements of the European Parliament, in connection with the security requirements of diplomats. As this service will be provided infrequently, vehicle hire without driver and the price thereof shall not be included in the price schedule. Once an acceptable tender has been made, the European Parliament may request vehicle hire without driver directly under the framework contract, subject to prior agreement between the European Parliament and the Contractor.
The financial quotation must be included in the price schedule annexed to the Act of Undertaking (tender document 5).
4. MINIMUM SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
The tenderer declares that the services will meet the minimum requirements set out below. The European Parliament reserves the right to request, at any time, proof of compliance with any of these requirements and/or to carry out appropriate checks, without prejudice to the provisions set out below and in point 6 of the technical specifications.
A. Compulsory technical specifications for vehicles
Vehicles must not be more than three years old at the time that the service is provided and must be kept in a good state of cleanliness (in particular, smoking is strictly forbidden both during and outside the periods in which the contracted services are provided) and in perfect running order throughout their period of use by the European Parliament.
They must be dark blue, black, light grey or dark grey, and must be equipped with automatic air conditioning, a GPS navigation system, and a hands-free Bluetooth system for wireless connection between the driver’s GSM and the fixed audio system (no headsets).
All vehicles shall be fitted with winter tyres according to weather conditions, and in any case from 1 November to 31 March.
Vehicles must be equipped with a satellite tracking system with access via a web interface permitting encrypted transmission of the vehicle’s position. On request with adequate notice from the European Parliament, vehicles must
be provided with equipment for transporting young children and/or with equipment to facilitate access for people with reduced mobility.
A.1. Cars
Luxury vehicles in segment H (luxury saloons) commonly used to transport VIPs.
Mixed cycle CO2 emissions: maximum 140 g/km on signature of the contract, and maximum 130 g/km for any newly acquired vehicle once such vehicles have appeared on the French market.
At least Euro 5 standard from the start of the contract, and Euro 6 standard at latest twelve months after the entry into force of this standard.
Boot capacity (with rear seats in normal position): minimum 450 litres. Rear elbow room, measured at the narrowest point: minimum 1 300 mm. After setting precisely 1 080 mm between the accelerator and the base of
the front of the driver’s seat-back, the space between the back of that seat and the front of the rear seat-back must be at least 660 mm (measured at the narrowest point).
Minimum headroom on the back seat: 900 mm (measured vertically at the back of the seat near to the base of the seat-back).
A.2. Minibuses
One-box body, 6 or 7 passenger seats, minimum 4 doors including 2 side doors giving access to the passenger compartment.
At least Euro 5 standard from the start of the contract, and Euro 6 standard at latest twelve months after the entry into force of this standard.
Dimensions and volume of the passenger compartment: - minimum width 1 400 mm
- minimum length 2 600 mm measured from the middle of B-pillar to the boot door
- minimum height 1 300 mm Exterior measurements:
- maximum exterior height 2 000 mm - minimum exterior width 1 880 mm
The Contractor shall submit to the European Parliament a list of the vehicles that may be used for the services, including at least the make, type, year of manufacture, power in kW, average urban-cycle consumption, average CO2 emissions per km and the Euro standard classification, together with the manner in which they are held (ownership, permanent lease or short-term hire1). Each vehicle shall have a specific number, provided by the European Parliament, to which the Contractor must always refer in his relations with the relevant department.
Should the list need to be modified, and throughout the duration of the contract, in particular to renew the fleet of vehicles involved or to acquire less polluting and/or hybrid cars (see above), the Contractor shall undertake to notify the European Parliament on its own initiative of the changes that he intends to make to the list.
B. Specific minimum requirements for staff
The positions of driver and coordinator below must not be combined during the period of provision of services covered by a single order form.
B.1. Drivers
Drivers must speak at least French and English or German (basic level). Skills in any of the other EU official languages are an asset.
They must hold a Category B driving licence and have been a professional chauffeur for at least three years.
They must have provided the Contractor with an extract from criminal records of no more than three months old, showing they are free from criminal convictions.
Drivers must have perfect knowledge of the city of Strasbourg and its surrounding area.
They must show a suitable personal and professional attitude appropriate to the service of VIPs and the image of the European Parliament. They must wear a uniform chosen by the Contractor, provided at his expense and approved by the European Parliament.
Drivers must have a mobile telephone (GSM) for work, provided by the Contractor, with a Bluetooth connection to connect to the vehicle’s hands-free GSM kit (no headsets), and must be contactable via this telephone during the provision of services.
B.2. Coordinators
The Contractor shall allocate, at his own expense, a sufficient number of administrative staff to ensure the proper organisation and management of the vehicle fleet and drivers. This shall include at least two coordinators
who must be permanently present on site to ensure the proper management of drivers and respond to the requests of the relevant department of the European Parliament.
All coordinators must have a mobile telephone (GSM) for work, provided by the Contractor, and must be contactable via this telephone during the provision of services.
Coordinators must have a good oral knowledge of French and English (level B2 or above). Skills in any of the other EU official languages are an asset. They must be able to work with IT tools, in particular with web interface applications, to manage orders for vehicles in real time and to monitor the contracted services.
6. OBLIGATIONS OF THE CONTRACTOR
5.1 Recruitment and allocation of staff
The Contractor shall recruit and remunerate a sufficient number of appropriately skilled staff required for performance of the contract. Staff shall work under the Contractor’s constant supervision and sole and direct responsibility.
The Contractor shall ensure that the principle of equality of opportunity is applied when selecting staff.
The Contractor shall undertake to provide the relevant department of the European Parliament, upon request, with the individual documents attesting to employees’ previous experience and professional skills, together with two identity photographs. The European Parliament reserves the right to reject the use of a person employed by the Contractor to provide the services. The Contractor shall submit each new employee for approval by the persons responsible in the relevant department no less than five working days before they are due to start work.
The Contractor shall provide a detailed weekly staffing chart indicating the staff he intends to allocate to the job not later than 12 noon on the last working day before each requested service period. The staffing chart must be approved by the European Parliament’s relevant department and may not be amended without its written consent. Any amendment to the staffing chart must comply with the specific minimum requirements in point 4-B above and be, in terms of all aspects, at least equivalent to the original tender as regards what the Contractor claimed to provide for the purposes of the qualitative assessment of his tender (see point 6 below).
5.2 User satisfaction survey
The Contractor shall implement a satisfaction survey amongst users of the service, for the first time six months following the start of the framework contract and after that
every 12 months. He shall submit the model questionnaire to the European Parliament for approval and within two weeks of this shall submit the results and completed questionnaires with suggested measures for improvement.
5.3 Continuous training of staff
The Contractor shall undertake to arrange regular training courses for drivers, in particular customer care (transport of VIPs), and eco-driving courses. The Contractor shall indicate in his tender the type and frequency of training courses that he proposes to have his staff follow.
5.4 Organisation of services
Before provision of the services begins, and if there are any changes, the European Parliament will inform the Contractor of the names, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of the contacts in the relevant department of the European Parliament who will be the sole points of contact for any question related to the organisation and performance of the contract.
Drivers shall receive their instructions only from the above-mentioned administrative staff (coordinators), who shall receive transport requests to be fulfilled from the relevant department of the European Parliament. Drivers shall not follow orders which infringe the highway code or divert them from the route that they have been assigned. In particular, any request derogating from the rule limiting transport to a radius of 20 km of Strasbourg must have prior authorisation from the European Parliament’s relevant department.
The European Parliament reserves the right to suspend any service the safety of which is not guaranteed or which might result in physical injury or damage to property.
5.5 Biometric clocking system
The Contractor shall provide, at his own cost, a biometric clocking system to record the periods when his staff are present, at latest six months after the entry into force of the contract. The relevant department of the European Parliament may ask the Contractor for the record from this system whether in real time or at a frequency which it shall indicate. It must also have access to this system in order to be able to follow the service provider’s recordings in real time.
5.6 Access to the buildings and infrastructure of the European Parliament
When in the European Parliament's buildings the contractor’s staff shall be required to wear and display clearly at all times the 'laissez-passer' badge that they receive. The European Parliament hereby informs the Contractor that smoking is prohibited on the European Parliament’s premises, except in the locations specifically provided for that purpose, and that this ban applies without exception in vehicles.
Access to the buildings by the Contractor’s drivers and administrative staff is restricted to the periods covered by an order form. However, in order not to impede the assignment which is the subject of this invitation to tender, access shall be permitted within a reasonable period before and after the time slots indicated on a given order form.
The Contractor will be able to park his vehicles on European Parliament premises only on days when services covered by an order form are provided.
The European Parliament shall give the contractor's staff the opportunity to make telephone calls outside the buildings, provided that such calls are strictly professional and relate directly to the performance of the orders.
The European Parliament shall allow the Contractor’s staff access to the officials’ catering facilities (payment required) and a rest room.
5.7 Vehicle fleet
The tenderer must continue to fulfil the conditions of the technical capacity criterion (point 14.2 of the administrative provisions, i.e. he must hold a fleet of 30 limousines and 5 minibuses, either owned or on permanent lease, for the whole duration of the contract.
The use of a vehicle that does not comply with the requirements of point 4-A above is authorised only in exceptional circumstances and with due justification, in particular
in the case of provision of a high number of additional hours or of force majeure. The Contractor must then inform the European Parliament in advance of this temporary lack of technical compliance. The European Parliament reserves the right to reject the use of a non-compliant vehicle.
6. COMPULSORY QUALITATIVE ELEMENTS OF THE TENDER
Subject to the provisions of these specifications, tenderers must submit, in particular, the following documents as part of their tender to enable the tender to be qualitatively assessed. They are also asked to submit any other document that is relevant from the point of view of the qualitative criteria set out in point 15 of the administrative provisions and to describe explicitly and concretely the resources which they intend to employ in order to provide the European Parliament with an unexceptionable service.
a) a detailed description of the organisation of human resources assigned to the services (qualitative and quantitative organisation of the teams, including coordinators, guidelines and management, measures in the event of unforeseen absences including urgent situations, ‘buffering’ capacity including that provided by independent subcontractors2);
b) a description of the more general organisational and management structure that will be set up to respond in a timely fashion and with optimal quality to requests from the European Parliament, including in particular guarantees of the level of service, the IT applications used internally to manage the service and the organisation of related services such as maintenance, break-down and recovery;
c) certification of a quality management system in place in the tenderer's organisation and applied to the business concerned (limousine service and administrative procedures such as HR management, invoicing, etc) or any other similar documentation (especially written procedures and manuals), sectoral certifications and qualifications or certificates applicable to the service involved, description of plans for assessing and continuously improving quality;
d) proposals concerning the comfort and satisfaction of users (i.e. the Members of European Parliament using the service), front-end type IT solutions for user comfort and monitoring/reporting for the European Parliament, including easy access to web applications allowing real-time monitoring (biometric checking systems for staff and satellite vehicle tracking system);
e) a description of the overall supervision of drivers and coordinators with a view to providing excellent service, in particular periodic assessments, quality assessment via ‘mystery passengers’, compulsory training organised for the drivers and related to the subject of the contract (in particular advanced
2 In that case, part 6 of the administrative provisions (subcontracting) will apply and in particular the Contractor should indicate the estimated proportion of subcontracting to be used and, where possible the identity of subcontractors. It is reminded that prior approval must be obtained from European Parliament for each subcontractor, even during the framework contract.
driving courses, reaction in situations of risk, eco-driving, courteous driving, behavioural tests, etc.);
f) a description of the clean technology implemented by the Contractor for the performance of the contract (hybrid, plug-in, CNG-powered vehicles), environmental labels awarded to the transport service (eco-label or equivalent, etc) and the systems in place (low friction tyres, start/stop system, etc);
g) a description of the carbon-neutral approach, in particular, the calculation method, reporting and reliability assurance, for CO2 emissions directly connected with the contractual services and the transport of vehicles to Strasbourg, where applicable, and the full or partial offsetting system for these emissions;
h) certification of an environmental management system (EMAS or other certification system) which will be applied in the activity concerned.
The qualitative elements declared by the tenderer are binding for the whole duration of the contract and may be subject to verification by the European Parliament, particularly during the assessments upon which annual renewal of the framework contract are based.
ANNEX I
ANNEX TO THE ORDER FORM
Week
Date:
Duty times Number of
hours
Number of
Total hours
start end Cars Minibuses
Monday 11:00 12:30 1:30 15 15 45:00 12:30 16:00 3:30 25 15 140:00 16:00 18:00 2:00 35 15 100:00 18:00 21:30 3:30 70 15 297:30 21:30 23:00 1:30 30 15 67:30 23:00 00:00 1:00 20 15 35:00 0:00 0:00 Subtotal 727:30 Tuesday 7:00 7:30 0:30 5 2:30 7:30 10:30 3:00 70 15 255:00 10:30 12:00 1:30 20 15 52:30 12:00 12:30 0:30 20 10 15:00 12:30 15:00 2:30 30 15 112:30 15:00 18:00 3:00 25 15 120:00 18:00 22:00 4:00 70 15 340:00 22:00 23:00 1:00 35 15 50:00 23:00 24:00 1:00 20 15 35:00 Subtotal 982:30 Wednesday 7:00 7:30 0:30 5 2:30 7:30 10:30 3:00 70 15 255:00 10:30 12:00 1:30 20 15 52:30 12:00 12:30 0:30 20 10 15:00 12:30 15:00 2:30 30 15 112:30 15:00 18:00 3:00 20 15 105:00 18:00 21:30 3:30 70 15 297:30 21:30 23:00 1:30 40 15 82:30 23:00 24:00 01:00 20 10 30:00 Subtotal 952:30 Thursday 7:00 7:30 0:30 5 2:30 7:30 10:30 3:00 70 15 255:00 10:30 12:00 1:30 20 15 52:30 12:00 12:30 0:30 20 10 15:00
12:30 15:00 2:30 70 15 212:30 15:00 16:30 1:30 20 15 52:30 16:30 19:30 3:00 25 15 120:00 19:30 21:00 1:30 10 10 30:00 21:00 22:00 1:00 5 2 7:00 Subtotal 747:00 Friday 7:00 7:30 0:30 5 2:30 7:30 10:30 3:00 10 5 45:00 10:30 12:00 1:30 5 7:30 Subtotal 55:00 Total hours limousines/minibuses 3422:30 Reserve 200:00 TOTAL HOURS 3622:00
