Oxford City Bus Shelters

1. Oxford City Council (the Council) is looking for an organisation to provide maintenance of the 230 or so bus shelters located in and around the historic city of Oxford and generate income and profit from advertisements through a Concession contract. 2. Through this contract the Council is seeking high quality, accessible, informative, safe and secure waiting and interchange facilities at bus stops that are kept clean and well maintained throughout the contract term, to encourage passenger growth and meet Zero Carbon Oxford objectives. 3. The Contract will also support the achievement of the National Bus Strategy and the Oxfordshire Enhanced Partnership Plan and Scheme. There is opportunity to work with the Enhanced Partnership on the branding of bus stop infrastructure, potentially tying in with the zero emission bus fleet branding. In return, the council is offering the Concessionaire the exclusive advertising rights on these assets in accordance with Office of Fair Trading guidance on Street Furniture Advertising issued in May 2012. 4. The Council is looking for an organisation that shares its environment sustainability values to achieve zero emissions across the city by 2040, which is ten years ahead of the legal deadline set by Government. It is predicted that by 2040 action taken through this approach will have reduced Oxford's emissions by 88% from 2018 levels. Encouraging increased bus use is a vital part of delivering on this ambition. 5. In addition, Oxfordshire County and Oxford City Councils are progressing a Zero Emission Zone (ZEZ) pilot in Oxford city centre, the first phase of which came into place in April 2022, (with further phases planned) together with developing plans for a package of core transport schemes for Oxford which includes traffic filters and a Workplace Parking Levy to discourage single-occupancy car trips and significantly improve bus journey times and reliability, whilst also directly supporting the roll-out of 159 new zero-emission buses through the ZEBRA project. 6. There is limited car parking facilities in the City centre and City centre car park charges are high, to encourage visitors to use the comprehensive Oxford Park & Ride system - which has five sites located on or close to the ring road, with new sites and 'transport hubs' under development aimed at encouraging the switch from car to bus earlier in the journey. 7. Frequent urban bus routes in Oxford have a high level of demand arising from the city's high-density urban form. There are current frequencies of more than 20 buses per hour on some radial routes in Oxford - these bus services have historically operated on a fully commercial basis from 0500 to 0000 daily with night bus services until 0300 on many of the main corridors. There is a Bus Service Improvement Plan in place for Oxfordshire. 8. There is strong competition between the two major Bus Operators in Oxford on the key bus corridors since 2011. Since then, services on some key corridors have been coordinated with a joint ticketing arrangement in place (branded as SmartZone, which is available on most buses in the city). A map of the SmartZone routes is available here https://tiscon-maps-stagecoachbus.s3.amazonaws.com/ZoneMaps/Oxford/SmartZone map.pdf. The main bus companies in Oxford are Oxford Bus Company, Stagecoach West and Thames Travel. Oxford Bus Company and Thames Travel carry on average 40,000 passengers per day within the SmartZone area The Proposition 9. The Council are keen to hear how its bus shelter estate can be utilised most effectively over a long term period to provide high quality and environmentally sustainable services to residents of Oxford and those who commute into the city for work, and those who visit the city. The council are looking for an operator that can generate income and profit for the operator and the Council in order to achieve this and is interested in hearing innovative proposals which meet the strategic aims set out above. 10. The Council are keen to hear what enhancements suppliers can offer, to help achieve the Council's ambitions with respect to supporting bus patronage growth and reducing carbon emissions, prioritising high-quality/sustainable/easily maintainable materials, RTPI units, 5G connectivity, cycle parking shelters, solar power and green roofs where possible. 11. The current supplier to the council provides a full cleaning and maintenance service. The current contract is coming to end shortly and we are in discussion with this supplier to implement a robust exit strategy. A programme of works will need to be agreed to ensure the removal and replacement of existing shelters and any other changes to the Oxford bus shelter network keep disruption to service users to an absolute minimum. The relevant information 12. Oxford has a resident population of 162, 100 (2021 census). During the last ten years, the population size increased by 6.7 per cent from around 151,900 in 2011 to 162,100 in 2021. 13. Footfall data from February 2022 shows that although numbers are not yet back to pre-pandemic levels the total number of visitors (over the last 52 weeks) was 23,497,409, which is an increase of 63.3% from the previous year. The Council estimates that there are 50% of the workforce in Oxford are commuters from outside of the city. It is an international city with a high student population.    14. Under the current contract the bus shelters are owned, in the main, by the incumbent supplier, the rest are owned by the City and the County Council.  Around half the shelters currently contain some form of advertising space either in poster, or digital form, see below for more details. 15. The Council is keen to understand if more advertising opportunities are available, bearing in mind the need to seek the necessary planning permissions for this, which will be the responsibility of the contractor. Table showing ownership of shelters and whether they are with/without advertising is available if you are interested in contacting eswapp@oxford.gov.uk 10. Oxford City Council is organising a market engagement session for interested organisations to attend in the Oxford City Town Hall to hear more about our Oxford bus Shelters exploration project and get a good idea of what is involved on 13/04/2023 at 2 PM. Please get in touch with Elaine Swapp at eswapp@oxford.gov.uk to book a place, or call 01865 252912. Additional information: Oxford City Council is organising a market engagement session for interested organisations to attend in the Oxford City Town Hall to hear more about our Oxford bus Shelters exploration project and get a good idea of what is involved on 13/04/2023 at 2 PM. Please get in touch with Elaine Swapp at eswapp@oxford.gov.uk to book a place, or call 01865 252912.