Winning a school transport tender in Germany: how districts score bids and what operators must get right

There is no single place to look. Above the EU thresholds, contracts appear on TED, the supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. For national and EU-wide notices from federal, state and local authorities there is also the tender search on service.bund.de and the federal notice service oeffentlichevergabe.de. The procedure itself, meaning tender documents, bidder questions and submission, then runs on whatever e-procurement platform the authority uses. That differs by federal state and often by district, for example the Vergabemarktplatz NRW in North Rhine-Westphalia or a commercial platform the district has licensed.

In practice: register on the platforms of the districts in your area before the next round comes up. Creating an account only after the notice costs days. Also sign up for each procedure you are interested in, so that you do not miss answers to bidder questions or amended documents. In an open procedure above the thresholds, section 15 VgV (the German Procurement Ordinance) sets a minimum tender period of 35 days, which can be cut by five days where bids are submitted electronically. For a bid with several concepts that is tight unless the building blocks are already prepared.

Under section 122 GWB (the German Act against Restraints of Competition, which contains the procurement rules above the EU thresholds) public contracts go only to competent and capable companies. Three areas are assessed: authorisation to pursue the professional activity, economic and financial standing, and technical and professional ability. Suitability (Eignung) is a threshold, not a competition. If you meet it, you are in. More vehicles or more references earn no extra points at this stage.

Since 1 July 2026, when the Vergabebeschleunigungsgesetz (Procurement Acceleration Act) came into force, section 122(3) GWB provides that suitability should be proven by self-declarations. Further documents should only be requested from bidders with a realistic chance of winning. That eases submission. It does not ease what follows: when the authority requests the evidence, it sets a deadline under section 48(2) VgV, and a bidder who misses it is treated as one whose documents are missing.

Two limits in the VgV protect smaller operators. Under section 45(2) VgV a required minimum annual turnover may exceed twice the estimated contract value only where specific risks justify it. Section 46(3) no. 1 VgV asks for references from no more than the last three years as a rule. If your own size is still not enough, there are two routes: a bidding consortium with another operator, which under section 43 VgV must be treated like a single bidder, or reliance on the capacities of another company (Eignungsleihe) under section 47 VgV, backed by that company’s written commitment.

Below the EU thresholds the Unterschwellenvergabeordnung (UVgO), the below-threshold procurement code, applies in most cases. Its suitability rules in sections 33 and 35 follow the VgV, and under section 35(2) UVgO the authority also asks for self-declarations as a rule. The UVgO does not apply automatically, though. Each federal state decides by its own implementing decree whether and from which values it applies to districts and municipalities. On top come state procurement acts with their own declarations on collective pay agreements or minimum pay. Which forms you must enclose is therefore always set out in the specific tender documents.

Under section 127 GWB the contract is awarded to the most economically advantageous tender, determined by the best price-quality ratio. Section 58(2) VgV lists permissible quality criteria including accessibility of the service for people with disabilities, the organisation, qualifications and experience of the staff assigned, and the availability of customer service. For school transport that translates into a contingency concept, a staffing concept, dispatch availability and how children with special support needs are handled.

The decisive point for bid strategy is section 127(5) GWB. Award criteria and their weighting must be stated in the notice or the tender documents. You therefore know before costing how many points a concept is worth and how price is converted into points. Read the scoring matrix before the price sheet. With a weighting of 60 percent price and 40 percent quality, a mediocre concept can wipe out a price advantage entirely; at 90 to 10 it hardly can.

Except under a fixed price, though, price remains part of the scoring, and it has to hold over the whole term. A bid that only covers its costs in the first school year loses money in the third. How a robust per-kilometre rate is built from staff, vehicle, fuel and empty kilometres is shown in our article on per-kilometre costs in minibus transport. If a price looks abnormally low, the authority must ask for an explanation under section 60 VgV. Keep your costing traceable enough to answer that question in writing within a few days.

School transport is usually tendered in lots, split by school, municipality or type of special needs. Section 97a GWB makes division into lots the rule. For bidders that is an opportunity, because a regional operator does not have to cover the whole district. It is also a trap, because each lot has to be costed separately and backed separately with staff and vehicles.

Watch the rules set under section 30 VgV. The authority can decide how many lots a bidder may bid for and cap the number of lots a single bidder can win. It can also reserve the right to award several lots in combination, but must announce that in advance. If you bid for five lots and win all five, you must be able to run all five from the first day of the school year.

• Bid for lots whose routes combine with your existing work, for example school runs in the morning and day care runs mid-morning with the same vehicle.
• Cost every lot as if it were the only one you win. A price that only works as a package is a risk.
• Check the arrival times of several schools within one lot. If they are close together, you need more vehicles than the pupil numbers suggest.
• Clarify uncertainties about passenger numbers, wheelchair places and escorts through bidder questions, not through assumptions in your bid.

The grounds for exclusion are spelled out clearly enough to tick off before submission. Under section 57 VgV bids are excluded, among other reasons, if they arrive late or in the wrong form, lack required or subsequently requested documents, contain changes to the tender documents, or lack required prices. Below the thresholds, section 42 UVgO says almost exactly the same.

Many bidders assume the authority will simply ask for whatever is missing. Section 56(2) VgV permits this but does not require it, and the authority can rule it out in the notice from the start. Paragraph 3 matters even more. Performance-related documents that affect the scoring against the award criteria may not be requested after submission. A scored contingency concept you forgot stays missing. Section 41 UVgO contains the same limit.

• All required forms and self-declarations in the current version of the tender documents, signed or in the required electronic form.
• Price sheet complete, every item filled in, no additions of your own, arithmetic checked.
• Each scored concept as a separate document, structured along the points the scoring matrix asks for.
• Answers to bidder questions and any amended documents from the authority worked in.
• For a consortium or reliance on another company: declarations from all parties and the commitment letter enclosed.
• Upload to the platform well before the deadline, with confirmation of receipt.

Evaluation panels read many concepts that sound the same. "If a driver is unavailable, a replacement is provided immediately" appears in almost every bid and scores little, because it proves nothing. What scores is what an evaluator can follow: who decides, by when, with what resources, and how the district finds out.

1. 1Contingency conceptDescribe the process from the sick call at 6:00 a.m.: who takes it, how the route is redistributed, which standby drivers are available, and from what delay the school and parents are informed.
2. 2Replacement vehicleState the number, location and equipment of reserve vehicles, separately for vehicles with and without a wheelchair place, and how long a replacement takes to reach any point in the lot.
3. 3Driver qualificationExplain how drivers are selected, briefed and trained, who drives which route as a fixed assignment, and how substitutes are introduced so that children do not see a new face every day.
4. 4Communication with schools and parentsName availability, channels and reporting routes: who informs whom about delays, how changes to pick-up times are communicated, how parents reach dispatch, and what is recorded.

A concept becomes credible when every step is backed by a tool the operation already uses. An operator that plans routes in a dispatch system can attach a sample plan for a lot, show how re-planning works after a breakdown, and prove that departure and arrival times are recorded. That keeps the commitments verifiable after the award as well. Monthly reports on completed journeys and delays then come from operating data rather than a spreadsheet filled in after the fact. What this looks like for school runs is shown on our page on software for school transport.

Only promise what you can deliver, though. A committed replacement within 30 minutes becomes part of the contract. Significant or persistent deficiencies in an earlier public contract can lead to exclusion from future procedures under section 124(1) no. 7 GWB, where they resulted in early termination or damages, for example.

Above the EU thresholds, section 134 GWB requires the authority to inform unsuccessful bidders in text form before the contract is concluded: the name of the winning bidder, the reasons for rejection and the earliest date of contract conclusion. The contract may only be signed 15 calendar days later, or ten calendar days if the notice is sent electronically.

That window decides whether a review procedure is possible. Under section 160(3) GWB, identified breaches must be raised with the authority (Rüge, a formal complaint) within ten calendar days. Breaches already recognisable from the notice or tender documents must be raised before the tender deadline expires. So if you consider a scoring matrix unlawful, say so before you submit, not after you lose.

Below the thresholds there is no review before the public procurement tribunals (Vergabekammern). Whether unsuccessful bidders must be informed before the award is a matter solely for the procurement law of the federal state concerned. If in doubt, ask the contracting authority which rule applies to the procedure. Either way, after every rejection it pays to ask for your score per criterion. No other feedback shows so precisely where the next bid has to improve.