By the authority of the Freedom of Information Act I would like to request information about bus route tenders beyond what is available on your website. I am a PhD student at a public research institution in the UK and will use the information for non-commercial purposes. I am mentioning this because if you would judge that providing the requested information would be against the public interest, I would like to discuss alternatives like modifying the request to earlier dates to reduce its commercial value for future tenders. A - For all tenders between 01-01-2014 and 31-12-2016, I’d like to know whether you store the following information: 1) all bids received with bidder identifier 2) a breakdown of the cost of the bids (this would be section 4.1 of the tender; I’ve attached an example of the cost breakdown data for route 38 from an older tender) 3) a breakdown of the cost of the winning bid 4) bid details from part 2 of the tender: response to question 2.1 about vehicle availability 5) bid details from part 2 of the tender: response to question 2.2 about proposed operating base 6) the list of parties included on London Buses Tender List (possibly at the time of tendering) 7) the list of parties included on London Buses Tender List that expressed interest in the tendered routes, and thus contacted to participate in the tender (possibly at the time of tendering) [Relevant sections 2.1, 2.2, and 4.1 refer to the Master ITT from September 2005 that may be outdated.] B - For all or a subset of the 7 points, could you make this information available to me for the purpose of my research? The names of the operators are not required and the data could be anonymized appropriately.

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Our ref: FOI-2605-1718/GH

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 10 December 2017 asking for information about bus tendering.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you require.

You may already be aware that the following link provides the outcomes of bus tendering awards showing the overall prices:

https://data.gov.uk/data/contracts-finder-archive/search/?query=bus+tender+route+181&sort_by=relevance&region=London&min_value=&max_value=&publication_date_from=&publication_date_to=&deadline_date_from=&deadline_date_to=&award_date_from=&award_date_to=.

You will need to search by bus route individually or groups of bus routes, then you can open the contract award document for each one and extract higher level financials information.

The remaining information, for example information relating to unsuccessful bids and bidders is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section 43(2). In this instance the section 43(2) exemption has been applied as disclosure would, or would be likely to prejudice our commercial interests. Releasing this information, even in an anonymized format, could as hinder TfL’s ability to negotiate the best value for money for similar services in the future, as it would distort receiving competitive bids in future, and all bidders could ‘bunch’ their offers in a similar range.

The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. We recognise the need for openness and transparency by public authorities, particularly where the expenditure of public money is concerned, but in this instance the public interest in ensuring that we are able to obtain the best value for public money outweighs the general public interest in increasing transparency of our processes.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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