Facilitating public procurement of innovative sustainable transport and mobility solutions in urban areas

Market demand for sustainable urban mobility solutions can be boosted by increasing purchaser (and indirectly end-user) awareness about technologies and processes used in implementing sustainable urban solutions. Urban areas concentrate demand for sustainable transport and mobility solutions (such as alternatively fuelled vehicles and supporting (refuelling) infrastructure) by public procurers. The procurement of innovation can support the broad market take-up of innovative solutions through the jointly planning (across borders) demand created by public procurers.

Under this topic, support should be provided for the establishment of a number of cross-border networking activities that plan future public procurements of innovation (PPI^[1]) and/or pre-commercial procurements (PCP^[2]) of solutions that result in sustainable urban mobility, including vehicles corresponding to alternative fuels infrastructure as legislated in Directive 2014/94. Also actions funded here could complement those funded in the ELENA instrument in two ways: the preparatory public procurement activities funded in this topic could lead to ELENA applications, or the implementation of an ELENA action could be supported as part of the actions funded in this topic.

Proposals should be driven by clearly identified needs of the procurers, including life-cycle and cost-benefit assessments. It is envisaged that there will be a fairly small (about 5-10 organisations) consortium of public procurers that organises dissemination activities for a larger group of public procurers. Clear commitments from participants for a further Europe-wide take-up and rollout of results during and following the project are expected. Proposals could include new approaches for market consultations with suppliers, paying special attention to SME suppliers. Proposals should consider where possible strategies to plan and implement joint, cross-border procurement of solutions that are not yet available on a large-scale commercial basis and which entail a higher risk than purchasing products that are already commercially widely available.

Consortia should consist of public procurers or a group or multiple groups thereof, i.e. contracting authorities in the meaning of the public procurement Directives at all levels (local, regional, national and supra-national) that plan to establish implementation plans for improving the quality and efficiency of their public service offering by procurement of innovative solutions^[3] for use in cities and communities. This includes both contracting authorities in the meaning of the public procurement directive for public authorities (2004/18/EC) and utilities (2004/17/EC), for example public transport operators, relevant ministries, utilities, communes and cities, police or fire brigades, e-government administrations, etc.

The activities funded by the topic do not finance the actual procurement(s) made by project consortia or their members.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 0.6 to 1 million each would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Actions will lead to:

―An executed plan over the project lifetime that contains at least the following:1) better harmonised (between the various procurers) and articulated technical specifications; and 2) new, joint approaches for doing the competitive dialogue and defining award criteria in the specific area(s) of common purchasing needs.

―Setting up 'buyers groups' of public procurers that undertake joint, cross-border or coordinated procurements.

―Exchanging experience in procurement practices and strategies (organising trainings and other information exchange tools) in the specific area(s) of common purchasing needs.

―A set of well-documented practices available for replication

―Increased awareness, capacity building and a demonstrated, increased public purchasing of innovative urban mobility solutions.

This activity directly aimed at supporting the development and implementation of evidence base for R&I policies and supporting various groups of stakeholders is excluded from the delegation to the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) and will be implemented by the Commission services.

[1]PPI - Public procurement of innovative solutions means procurement where contracting authorities act as a launch customer for innovative goods or services which are not yet available on a large-scale commercial basis, and may include conformance testing.

[2]PCP - Pre-commercial procurement means procurement of R&D services involving risk-benefit sharing under market conditions, and competitive development in phases, where there is a separation of the research and development phase from the deployment of commercial volumes of end-products.

[3]Broader applications possible in the reformed public procurement directives 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU