Following an extensive tender period of 18 months, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) has awarded our client the contract to operate and maintain the Dublin and Jack Lynch Tunnel and the 24/7 operation of the Dublin-based Motorway Operations Control Centre, which monitors 1200 km of Ireland’s motorways
Additionally, our client will manage calls from Ireland’s 1600 emergency roadside telephones and will be responsible for the operation of variable message signs that provide real-time information to road users across the network. The eight-year contract, which can be extended for another eight years, has a potential value of €600 million.
The opportunity
Our client needed to re-tender for this strategically important contract to operate and maintain the Dublin Tunnel and the Jack Lynch Tunnel, as well as the 24/7 operation of the Dublin-based Motorway Operations Control Centre, which monitors 1200 km of Ireland’s motorways. Having held the contract since 2006, this was a ‘must win’ and our client knew there would be fierce competition from other major contractors operating in Ireland and Europe. It also knew there was no room for complacency, and it would need to produce a highly compelling tender to convince TII it was still the best choice, as well as the most economically advantageous organisation to deliver the next contract.
EiB approach and involvement
Led by Strategic Bid Consultant Richard Roddie our team worked collaboratively with the client from the outset. This involved supporting the development of the bid strategy, ‘win book’ and bid programme and acting as a ‘critical friend’ and sounding board throughout the SQ and ITT stages of this tender. Our team integrated seamlessly with the client team through a hybrid approach to working, remotely and at the client’s offices, particularly for key meetings and reviews. Our bid writers developed a compliance matrix and worked with the client’s subject matter experts to storyboard and develop draft responses. Each draft response went through an iterative review process and at each stage, Richard utilised his extensive work winning experience and knowledge of TII to constructively challenge the responses. This involved assessing whether the responses effectively addressed the tender questions, as well whether our client’s solution reflected its ‘win themes’ and was aligned to TII’s requirements.
Our Graphic Designer was engaged towards the end of the bid to develop new and improve existing images and graphics. We produced a writing template tailored to the formatting requirements, complete with our client’s branding and imagery. To fine-tune the responses and ensure our client submitted a compelling tender, we supported the final ‘gold’ review. This involved conducting a ‘one-voice’ edit, followed by systematic proof reading and consistency checks across the whole submission, using our bespoke consistency log.
Following submission of the tender, Richard commented:
Success and outcomes
Our client was very pleased with the extensive support we provided over the 18-month bid period and the quality of the submission was testament to the hard work that was put in by everybody.
The award of the new €600 million contract marks the third consecutive win for our client. It reinforces the strong partnership with TII and enables it to build on the significant improvements it has made to the operation and maintenance of both tunnels and the Motorway Operations Control Centre since 2006.