In-house award of public passenger transport services with buses and other motor vehicles pursuant to Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 in conjunction with Section 108 of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (GWB) in the integrated transport network of the district of Heinsberg, including outbound lines, as a complete service.

The Kreis Heinsberg in Germany from Europe region has released this tender for A. It is expressly pointed out that, contrary to the information in section 2.1 regarding the type of procedure (end of paragraph), this is a direct award pursuant to Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 (Regulation 1370/2007) in conjunction with Section 108 of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB). The indication of a "competitive procurement procedure" as the type of procedure there was only because specifying the procedure type "direct award" was technically impossible. B. Note for applications for commercially operated services: Pursuant to Section 12(6), sentence 1 of the German Passenger Transport Act (PBefG), the application for a permit for commercially operated scheduled bus services must be submitted no later than three months after this prior publication. This deadline is triggered by this prior publication for all scheduled bus services covered by the intended award. Pursuant to Section 13 Paragraph 2a Sentence 2 of the German Passenger Transport Act (PBefG), applications for commercially viable operation must meet the requirements described in Section 5.1 and may only relate to the total service of the integrated transport network in the Heinsberg district. Any commercially viable application that deviates significantly from these requirements must be rejected in accordance with Section 13 Paragraph 2a Sentences 2 et seq. of the PBefG. It is expressly noted that the provision of passenger transport services in the Heinsberg district has not yet been possible on a cost-covering basis, meaning that, from the perspective of the responsible authority (Section 1.1), the transport services cannot be operated on a commercially viable basis in the long term due to the lack of cost coverage. Furthermore, it is pointed out in this context that, in addition to demonstrating the feasibility of long-term commercially viable operation, the approval of a commercially viable application also requires a binding commitment to the standards pursuant to Section 12 Paragraph 1a of the PBefG, as set out in the "Supplementary Document". C. The representative collective bargaining agreements applicable under the North Rhine-Westphalia Public Procurement Act (TVgG NRW) can be accessed via the following link: https://www.tarifregister.nrw.de/tarifinformationen/Repraesentative-Tarifvertraege-im-OePNV. D. Note on lodging legal remedies: The deadlines for initiating review proceedings are set out in Sections 135 and 160 of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (GWB). Particular attention is drawn to the appeal period stipulated in Section 160 Paragraph 3 Sentence 1 No. 4 GWB. According to this provision, an application for review is inadmissible if more than 15 calendar days have elapsed since receipt of the contracting authority's notification that it does not intend to remedy a complaint. The obligations to raise objections set out in Section 160 Paragraph 3 Sentence 1 of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (GWB) also apply to review applications against announced direct awards of public service contracts (Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf, Decision of February 19, 2020 – VII Verg 27/17). The current wording of these provisions is, inter alia,The relevant legislation can be accessed on the website of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and the Federal Office of Justice at the following link: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gwb/ (Note: The legal texts available online are not the official version. The official version can be found in the Federal Law Gazette, which, since January 1, 2023, has been published exclusively electronically on the Federal Government's publication platform (https://www.recht.bund.de/de/home/home_node.html)). The competent authority for the legal remedy/review procedure is the Public Procurement Chamber of Westphalia (see section 8.1 ORG-0001). with tender notice no. 703348-2026 published on 12 Oct 2026. The tender is due to expire on 10 Jan 2027. This tender is sourced from TED Europa and is eligible for suppliers interested in Motor vehicles for the transport of 10 or more persons, Special-purpose road passenger-transport services, Hire of passenger transport vehicles with driver. Interested bidders can obtain further information including complete bid documents or ways to participate by registering on Tender Impulse and referencing via Tender Impulse ID 15408728.