Market interest and competition

3.19 The Department's strategy for achieving value for money from rail franchises depends on receiving good quality competitive bids. The Department has increased the quantity and quality of its early market engagement. However, a range of factors including the timing of competitions, the burden on resources of bidding and the attractiveness of the franchise specification, all influence operators' willingness to enter competitions.  In addition, by publishing the schedule of competitions, the Department has provided operators with the opportunity to consider their bidding strategies in advance, and to select which competitions they will bid for.

3.20 The Department's 15 franchises are currently run by companies set up by nine transport owning groups. Some owning groups bid on their own to operate franchises. Others create joint ventures and pool resources to bid and run franchises. Figure 5 overleaf sets out the current make up of the rail passenger franchise market by owning group and franchise. There are some contracts to run passenger rail services let by other transport authorities including Transport Scotland and Transport for London. The timing of these could also have an impact on interest in competitions run by the Department.