CRRC, in a joint venture with Astra Vagoane Arad, offered the best price in the Railway Reform Authority’s tender for EMUs, which places the Chinese company in the best position to be awarded the contract.
The Chinese producer received the highest number of points, namely 89, of the maximum possible 100 points.
The tenders will be tie-broken against price (weighting 80%), value (10% – as many seats as possible, subject to the obligation to maintain the ratio between standing places and seats), technical validation (3% – at least one EMU commissioned in the EU), leadtime for the first unit (3%), and leadtime for the entire quantity contracted (4%) criteria.
Besides the actual EMUs, tenderers are also required to provide maintenance services, and to delivery training of the staff on train and software operation.
The differences between the three offers
The technical offer of Alstom was for the Coradia Stream EMU, currently in operation in Italy. The Chinese of CRRC, in a joint venture with Astra Vagoane, proposed their patented EMU intercity model, which is not yet in operation elsewhere in Europe. And, eventually, Siemens proposed the Desiro ML OBB Cityjet model, which is currently in operation of Austria and Germany.
All three tenders were found technically compliant by the experts proposed by the European Investment Bank – the support team for PASSA projects.
But how well do the tenders meet the cost-quality criterion considered in the award of the contract?
When it comes to costs, consideration is given to the production costs, namely the acquisition prices of the EMUs, the maintenance costs for 40 EMUs for 30 years, multiplied by the average distance estimated in the tender specification, plus the energy consumption.
The consumption declared by the three varied between 3.79 kwh/km and 5.74 kwh/km. For the criterion consisting of EMUs commissioned in the European network, the European producers ranked highest.
Another factor considered was the transport capacity. In fact, each 10 places above the minimum required capacity of 200 in the tender documentation added additional 2%. The condition was to observe the required ratio between seats and standing places. The maximum was 50 additional seats, which generated a 10% score bonus. In this regard, the three tenders offered up to 32 additional places.
Another factor considered was the lead time, meaning the time required for the delivery of the first unit and of the entire quantity. The tenders proposed delivery times for the first unit between 18 and 24 months (i.e. the minimum and maximum lead times required in the tender specification), and of 31 to 40 months for the entire quantity (considering a required minimum deadline of 32 months).
However, RRA warns about a potential conflict of interests affecting one of the tenders, and that the final acceptance of its tender will be rendered conditional upon addressing this potential conflict.
The tender for acquisition of new rolling stock initially covers 40 electric regional trains (RE-R), with the possibility of increasing this quantity by other 40 additional EMUs. The new EMUs are to run at a maximum speed of 160 km/h. The economic operator submitting a tender shall prove that in the past 3 years they supplied at least 40 similar products and provided maintenance services for electric multiple units of at least RON 114.28 million (EUR 24 million), without VAT.
Funding of the project is provided from the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme – LIOP, and from the State budget. RRA is a direct beneficiary under the LIOP, subject to the terms laid down in the Applicant’s Guide, for the funds earmarked to the railway transport sector.
The estimated amount of the procedure is between RON 1.7 billion (EUR 357.4 million) and 4.55 billion (EUR 956.6 million), with the higher amount being valid in the event that RRA buys 40 additional EMUs.
If the contract will be aearded to CRRC – Astra Vagoane consortium, the first EMUs will be brought from China, and the rest are to be assembled in Arad.
*CRRC is Platinum Partner at ‘Railway Days – Club Feroviar Investment Summit‘
Astra Vagoane Arad attends at ‘Railway Days – Club Feroviar Investment Summit‘ as Gold Partner
Railway PRO is main media partner at ‘Railway Days – Club Feroviar Investment Summit‘ which will be held on 8 – 9 October 2019 in Bucharest. During the two days, main railway topics will be debated by the participants and by the 30 speakers and representatives of national, as well as international companies, authorities and organizations.
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