Provision of Artificial Intelligence Schedule Risk Analysis Tool

This direct award is proposed under Section 41 and Schedule 5,

paragraphs (5) and (6) of the Procurement Act 2023 on the basis that

the contract may be awarded without competition where, for technical

reasons, only a particular supplier is capable of delivering the

requirement.

EWR Co has determined that the services can only be supplied by

Nplan Ltd for the following technical reasons:

• A common AI-based schedule risk analysis solution, underpinned

by a proprietary and unique relevant dataset, is required across the

East West Rail programme to ensure consistency of methodology,

outputs and reporting. Nplan's service operates on the basis of a

proprietary dataset comprising over 750,000 schedules across

various industries but critically including historical Crossrail, Network

Rail and HS2 data which is are of particular relevance to EWR given

that these examples also pertain to rail construction; and

• EWR does not believe any other supplier offers a comparable

service with the same functionality based on real GB rail data.

There are therefore no reasonable alternatives to the Nplan service

offering.

For these reasons, EWR Co considers that Nplan Ltd is the only supplier capable of meeting the specific and complex technical requirements of the project while ensuring value for money and continuity of delivery