Specifying transport services: what belongs in the Leistungsverzeichnis so the contract survives daily operations

Section 31 VgV allows two ways of describing a service. Either through performance and functional requirements, or through technical requirements and standards, which then have to carry the addition "or equivalent". For transport services the first route carries further. A prescribed vehicle type says nothing about whether a child with a seizure disorder arrives safely.

The details a bidder needs in order to cost the work are few in school and disability transport. They are missing all the same, and regularly.

• Number of journeys per route, split by outbound and return, with the range of variation seen in previous years.
• Arrival window at the destination and the maximum reasonable journey time per passenger.
• Support needs per case: wheelchair with restraint system, escort, door to door or handover at the kerb.
• Availability of the scheduling desk and the response time when a sickness call comes in at 6:40.
• Rules for no-shows, waiting time at the front door and cancellations at short notice.
• Handling of passenger health data, including the question of who acts as processor.
• Holidays, bridging days and examination days on which the service runs differently or not at all.

One point is easily overlooked. Section 121(2) GWB requires that, where a service is intended for use by natural persons, accessibility criteria for people with disabilities are taken into account, except in duly justified cases. For a transport service that is not a formality. For bodies responsible for school transport we have collected the ground rules in the overview for schools and school authorities. In legal terms school transport usually runs as freigestellter Verkehr (exempt transport outside the scope of passenger transport licensing) under section 1 no. 4(d) FrStllgV, with journeys for people with disabilities to care institutions covered by letter (g) of the same provision.

Suitability answers the question of whether an undertaking is capable of performing the contract at all. Under section 122 GWB, suitability criteria may only concern the ability and authorisation to pursue the professional activity, economic and financial standing, and technical and professional capability. They must relate to the subject matter of the contract and be proportionate to it. Demand three references covering fifty vehicles each for a lot with six vehicles, and you exclude precisely the mid-sized operators who could run the route.

Which evidence may be required is listed in section 46(3) VgV. Three items carry most of the weight for transport services: references for comparable services over the last three years stating value, date and client; details of the technical staff, including those responsible for quality control; and a description of the technical equipment together with the quality assurance measures in place.

The classic mistake is to score the same thing twice. Asking for a number of references as a suitability criterion and then awarding points for it again in the scoring matrix gives large operators a double advantage. One exception is written into the law. Section 58(2) VgV names the organisation, qualification and experience of the staff assigned to perform the contract as a permissible award criterion. What is meant is the staff who actually drive the route. Company history does not count at this point.

Qualitative criteria can be assessed on a graded scale without the procurement documents defining in advance what exactly each score depends on. The Bundesgerichtshof (the German Federal Court of Justice) decided this by order of 4 April 2017 (X ZB 3/17). The price of that freedom is documentation. The evaluation decision has to be recorded so that a third party can follow it.

Under section 127 GWB the contract is awarded to the most economically advantageous tender, and that is determined by the best price-quality ratio. Alongside price, qualitative, environmental and social aspects may be taken into account. The criteria must relate to the subject matter of the contract and be framed so that the evaluation remains verifiable. Under section 58(3) VgV, criteria and weightings belong in the contract notice or the procurement documents.

Staff costs are the largest block in any transport calculation, and that block grows on a published schedule. The statutory minimum wage has been 13.90 euros gross per hour since 1 January 2026 and rises to 14.60 euros on 1 January 2027, set out in section 1 of the Fifth Minimum Wage Adjustment Ordinance. A bid costed just above that line today has no margin left in the second contract year. Every contracting authority knows what follows. Routes get merged, journey times stretch, driving staff move to another employer. The cost blocks behind this are broken down in our analysis of per-kilometre costs in minibus transport.

There is an instrument against conspicuously low bids that is used far too rarely. Section 60 VgV obliges the contracting authority to demand an explanation where the price of a tender appears abnormally low. If the explanation remains unsatisfactory, the tender is to be rejected; where breaches of environmental, social or labour law obligations are established, rejection is mandatory. Carrying out that review presumes the authority has formed its own view of what an hour of driving costs in the district concerned.

No transport contract survives four years unchanged. Families move away, a child changes school at the half-year point, a workshop takes on twelve new employees. Fail to anticipate that movement in the procurement documents and you later face a procurement law question rather than an organisational one.

Section 132 GWB draws the line. Material changes require a new procurement procedure, for instance where the economic balance shifts in favour of the contractor or the scope of the contract is considerably extended. A change remains permissible, by contrast, where the original procurement documents provide for clear, precise and unequivocal review clauses or options stating the scope, nature and conditions of the possible change. This is where the mechanics that keep the contract flexible belong.

• A price schedule with unit prices per journey and per kilometre, so that additions and removals can be settled without negotiation.
• A volume band within which case numbers may move without a price change, with a named upper and lower limit.
• A price adjustment clause with trigger, reference basis, effective date and calculation method, tied for example to the stages of the Minimum Wage Adjustment Ordinance or to a named collective agreement.
• A deadline within which the contractor has to assert the adjustment, and the obligation to substantiate it.
• A rule for the reverse case, where journeys fall away permanently.

On wage costs the legal position differs by type of contracting authority. The Bundestariftreuegesetz entered into force on 1 May 2026 and obliges contractors from a contract value of 50,000 euros excluding VAT to apply collectively agreed working conditions. It applies to the federal government and to bodies predominantly financed or controlled by it. Districts and municipal special-purpose associations fall outside its scope. Whether and above which value threshold they have to require Tariftreue (compliance with collective agreements) follows from the Landesvergabegesetz (state procurement act) of the federal state concerned, and those acts differ considerably in scope, thresholds and evidence requirements. There is no nationwide rule for municipal transport tenders.

Special conditions for the performance of the contract may be laid down under section 128(2) GWB, provided they relate to the subject matter of the contract and are stated in the contract notice or the procurement documents. They may concern economic, social, environmental or employment policy considerations. Paragraph 1 of the same provision already imposes the minimum working conditions under the Minimum Wage Act.

Reporting duties are worth only as much as they are verifiable. A monthly list of journeys performed and journeys missed, a delay summary per route, and proof of the daily pre-departure vehicle check are enough to steer the contract. Anything beyond that is rarely read. Reporting that falls straight out of the scheduling system used by the contractor costs both sides very little; a spreadsheet somebody fills in from memory at the end of the month says almost nothing.

Sanctions belong in the contract, but they have two limits. The first is legal. Contractual penalties have to be proportionate in amount and tied to a clearly described breach, otherwise they do not survive review. The second is practical. A contractual penalty gets nobody a driver for Monday morning. An escalation stage with a deadline for remedy works better, supplemented by a right of termination for cause on repeated breach and by documentation of the defects. That documentation pays off later, because section 124(1) no. 7 GWB permits the exclusion of an undertaking that has shown significant or persistent deficiencies in a prior public contract, provided these led to early termination, damages or comparable sanctions. Without a documented file the exclusion ground cannot be applied.

Since 1 July 2026 the lot principle has stood in a provision of its own. Section 97a GWB requires services to be awarded split by quantity (Teillose) and separated by type or specialism (Fachlose). Several lots may be awarded together where economic or technical reasons require it. Those reasons have to be recorded in the procurement file. Alongside this, the interests of small and medium-sized undertakings are to be given primary consideration under section 97(4) GWB.

In practice that means finding a lot size a regionally rooted operator with eight to fifteen vehicles can serve. Lots that are too small create administrative effort on both sides. Lots that are too large lead to two bids on the day of the bid opening, both of them expensive. Sensible cuts run along municipal boundaries, the catchment areas of individual schools or workshops, or along the level of support needed.

One calculation error keeps recurring in lot-based awards. For the question of whether an EU-wide procedure is required, what counts is the estimated total value of all lots over the entire term including extension options, not the value of a single lot. The current values and the calculation rules are set out in our article on the EU thresholds 2026 for transport tenders.

That leaves the contract term. Short contracts of one or two years stop an operator from investing in vehicles and staff. Three to five years give planning certainty, but they call for the adjustment mechanics described in the previous section. Both together are possible, yet the decision has to be made before the contract notice goes out.