The Hub – Transport Advisory, North Star Consultancy Limited and Journey4 (‘we’) are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a five-year contract with the Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom for advisory to its Operator of Last Resort (OLR) function. Specifically, we have been awarded contracts for two work packages, Operations & Human Resources and Commercial, Contracts & Insurance.
We have come together to form a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) partnership for this commission and to ensure additional resilience, we have added Additae Artes Ltd, commercial advisory specialists, and Arup, with its deep rail operations and commercial expertise and OLR programme track record. This work has been awarded via the DfT STARThree* framework which went live in September 2023. Both The Hub and North Star have experience of previous STAR frameworks and the OLR project, whilst this is Journey4’s first time on the DfT framework.
Pieter Meulendijk-de Mol, Director at The Hub commented “we are uniquely placed to support the DfT to discharge its function as the Operator of Last Resort, as our team members have shaped and delivered major parts of the OLR programme since 2015. In addition to our extensive experience across the GB rail industry, our teams have been instrumental in delivering all successful OLR mobilisations starting with LNER in 2018”.
Geraldene Lyon, Director at North Star added “our track record has been built on protecting DfT’s interests through well-designed processes that de-risk execution, acting as DfT’s trusted advisors and providing resilient solutions. We will apply these principles to this new contract award and across both work packages. Together with our partners Additae Artes and Arup we look forward to working with OLR on future projects”.
Stuart Pearce, Director for Journey4 said “we are delighted to have been awarded such a prestigious and long-term contract as an ‘SME’ partnership, demonstrating the DfT’s commitment to supporting small and medium sized enterprises through the STARThree Framework. We are proud that the quality of our approach and resources has been recognised and that the Department have put their trust in our partnership to help them discharge their responsibilities”.
For more information on our SME partnership and on this contract award please contact one of us:
Pieter Meulendijk-de Mol – pieter.meulendijk-demol@thehubtransportadvisory.com
Geraldene Lyon – gl@northstarconsultancy.com
Stuart Pearce – stuart.pearce@journey4.co.uk