Coach & Mini-bus Hire

Durham University organises a variety of student field trips, airport travel and Sports Club travel to a wide range of destinations from the surrounding local area, to as far north as the Isle of Skye and as far south as Exeter throughout the academic year. The requirements of each booking varies according to the individual needs of the trip and its travellers.

The University is looking for tenders to support the supply of its Coach and Mini Bus needs. Looking at spend analysis, Durham University has spent on average £310,000 per annum in hiring coaches and mini buses over the last 3 financial years.

The main objective of the contract is to provide a high quality transport service for staff, students and visitors within the University. The key considerations include, but not limited to, health & safety of all passengers, reliability and flexibility of service, staff, student, and visitor satisfaction, and promoting positive relations with the wider community.

In addition to the above, we are striving to appoint operators who can demonstrate capability in helping us meet our duty of care to our staff and students. The University expects that the successful operators will have a duty of care when carrying passengers and it is essential that passenger safety and passenger care are the top priority for operators to follow.

We are aiming to put together a framework agreement for coach and mini bus hire with a small number of operators so that we can work with coach operators, and increase the possibilities of creating better working relationships between the University and coach operators.

The framework is split into the following lots:

Lot 1 – General Coach & Mini-bus Requirements
Lot 2a – Lot 2a – Coach and Mini-bus Hire for Durham University General Sports Fixtures
Lot 2b – Coach Hire for Long Distance Sports Team Fixtures
Lot 3 – International Arrivals

Tender documents and expressions of interest can be found here: http://events.transaxions.com/service.aspx?event=6822