Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2021-06-02
Buyer: Statens vegvesen
Country: NO
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 72319000: Data supply services
Estimated value: 7200000 NOK

Technical requirements: Statens vegvesen (the Norwegian Public Roads Administration) intends to enter into a contract with Rambøll Norge AS for delivery of mobility data based on GPS units in vehicles. Several data sources are already available to analyse movements in the road network and population movement patterns and data from GPS devices will be useful both for validating findings across different data sources and to enriching the existing sources with new information.
Data about traffic and travel patterns is a necessary basis in road planning, urban and densely populated area development, toll money reviews and other investment decisions in and around the road network. In order to prepare good analyses in this way and give a truthful picture of the reality, it is necessary to compile data from multiple sources. Today, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (SVV) among other counting equipment that measures the number of vehicles that pass specific points along the roads, travel habits data based on surveys and data about movement patterns on a population level based on how mobile telephones move on the road network. The purpose of having multiple partially overlapping data sources is bipartite:
1) Various data sources supplement each other by giving different types of information or different detail levels in their respective areas.
2) Multiple data sources make it possible to validate results where several sources say the same thing or make uncertainty visible where there is no agreement between the sources.
Based on these two purposes and the data sources that are already available, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration sees a need to acquire data from GPS devices in vehicles or equivalent. The basis for the data is then accurate information about the individual journey, to differences in movements in the telecommunications network based on more inexact location of a larger number of devices. These data sources complement each other in terms of content, and compiling them is an important element in the quality assurance of analysis results.
The Public Procurement Regulations §13-4 letter b no. 2 allows for procurements without competition if only one specific supplier can deliver as competition is impossible due to technical reasons.
The market for mobility data from GPS or equivalent devices is small, with only a few suppliers globally. Through previous market surveys the Norwegian Public Roads Administration has been in discussions with all known suppliers who deliver this type of service and have had their solutions demonstrated. The conclusion from here is that only TomTom can deliver data in accordance with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration's need. Specifically, the following needs have been crucial in this assessment:
• Geographic and temporal delimitation and division. There is a need to analyse historic data from ad including 1 January 2020 and with ongoing updates at least each month. The data must cover 14 further defined road stretches, where the geographic division must be able to be adapted to the analysis needs, for example according to SSB's lot definitions.
• Information content. The data must give information about travel time/speed for various sub-stretches in different time periods, as well as about the number of journeys undertaken between different geographic zones in a given time period.
• Transparency in the data basis. The tenderer must be able to state which sources form the basis for the data, as well as the number of journeys used as a basis for each measurement of travel time or travel pattern (so-called sample size). This is critical in order to manage uncertainty in a good manner and ensure confidence in the analysis results.
• Automated delivery form. Data withdrawal must be able to be specified and carry out in an automated manner, for example with an API or through direct integration with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration's cloud storage platform. It must be possible to make changes in analyses and definitions without direct involvement from the tenderer. This is crucial to be able to quickly answer new analysis need as it arises.
Based on the results from the market dialogue, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration believes that there is sufficient evidence that TomTom is the only supplier who is able to deliver data in accordance with the need. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration is therefore of the opinion that they can enter into a contract without a prior notice in accordance with the public procurement regulation § 13-4 letter b number 2. TomTom refers to their distributor in Norway, and this is the background for the contract being signed with Rambøll Norge AS.


Winner: Rambøll Norge AS
Award value: 7200000