POLAND’s Solidarity Transport Hub (STH) has released a tender for a design framework contract worth more than Zlotys 7bn ($US 1.7bn) which covers 29 projects divided into 82 sections, including nearly 1800km of rail lines.

STH is overseeing a major infrastructure programme centred around the construction of new airport located between Warsaw and Lodz and associated connecting infrastructure, including what the company describes as Poland’s largest ever railway investment programme. STH says the tender process will be used to select a group of contractors which will subsequently compete for specific projects through a simplified executive procedure over an eight-year period. STH says it is hoping to attract interest from design specialists from Poland and internationally.

“The framework agreement will enable us to select contractors that can guarantee appropriate work quality,” says STH president, Mr Mikołaj Wild. “The idea is that later on, in the fast tenders of the STH, they will compete for executory agreements. The effects of such solution are unambiguously positive: a quality guarantee through the selection of reliable partners, shorter duration of orders, and predictability of the order book. This solution has already proven effective, in the environmental inventories of the STH, which have been in progress since 2020.”

The tender will be open until November 5 and can be accessed in both Polish and English on the European Union’s tender platform.

The contracts will include the design of the Warsaw - STH - Łódź - Wrocław line, which includes a connection with Poznań; the extension of the Central Railway Line via STH to Płock, Włocławek and the Tricity; and the new Katowice - Kraków line. The project also covers lines to regions not currently connected to the mainline network, including Ostrołęka - Łomża - Giżycko, Katowice - Jastrzębie-Zdrój - Ostrawa, Łętownia - Rzeszów and Trawniki - Krasnystaw - Zamość.

The contracts in the framework contract include environmental, programme and spatial concept, and location studies, along with studies to obtain construction permits and the necessary documentation to select construction works contractors.

STH will only evaluate the bidders’ quality criteria, such as staff experience, with price considered during the simplified tendering stage.

“For us, dialogue with contractors and getting to know each other’s expectations is the essence of cooperation on framework agreements,” says STH board members for rail investments, Mr Radosław Kantak. “The goal is to work together so that the contracting authority can efficiently select contractors, and the contractors can build a valuable portfolio of orders in the long term based on clearly defined criteria.”

Kantak says STH is hopes to attract bidders from the Polish market, but will also look internationally if it does not receive enough interest. 

STH is also preparing to tender framework agreements for engineering and construction work.

A detailed view on the rail element of the STH project appeared in the September issue of IRJ.