Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek Provides Counsel to VRR on Invitation to Bid for the S5 and S8 Lines

On May 20, 2011, transport association Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) announced the invitation to bid for the S5 and S8 lines in the European Official Journal. The transport company that will be awarded the contract is supposed to take over the operating services for 15 years from December 2014. The bidding procedure for the regional transport S-Bahn lines had been agreed in the settlement agreement between VRR and DB Regio.

As with the bid invitations for lines RB 47 (Der Müngstener) and RE 2 / RE 42 (Haard axis), the vehicle financing scheme developed by VRR and Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek will also be used for the S5 and S8 lines.

The new vehicle financing scheme has the companies that want to operate the railway line finance the vehicles by VRR, thus benefiting from favorable financing terms for the public sector. This ub turn leaves them with more funds to invest in modern trains and thus in passenger comfort.

"Normally, the transport company buys the trains - many companies, however, currently lack such financial power," explained procurement law expert Dr. Ute Jasper the advantage of the new vehicle financing scheme.

The S5 line is currently connecting Dortmund and Hagen, while the S8 runs from Mönchengladbach to Hagen.

The invitation to bid of the lines covers a total of 3.6 million train kilometers a year.