How to win: DfT National Freight Model

About this contract

The Department for Transport (DfT) intends to procure a supplier to develop a new National Freight Model (NFM), an in-house, cross-modal freight modelling capability designed to support transport policy development, appraisal, forecasting and decision-making across the UK. The NFM will replace existing freight modelling approaches and provide a modern analytical framework capable of representing freight movements across road, rail and domestic maritime modes. The contract will include the design, development, calibration, validation and implementation of a multimodal freight model capable of estimating current and future freight demand and flows by commodity, vehicle type and transport mode. The model must support the analysis of domestic freight movements and international freight movements to and from the United Kingdom, including maritime and rail freight services. The NFM will be required to assess the impacts of changes to infrastructure, land use, economic conditions, logistics behaviours and government policy interventions. It will also enable the testing of alternative scenarios and sensitivities to support transport planning, network resilience analysis, decarbonisation in

How to win contracts like this

• ✓Answer against the marking scheme, not the question text — Department for Transport scores each response, so map your evidence to the published criteria and weightings.
• ✓At £1,950,000, expect quality and social value to carry a large share of the score — price alone rarely wins services work.
• ✓Show recent, comparable delivery: name similar services contracts you've delivered for public bodies, with measurable outcomes.
• ✓Start early: it closes 9 October 2026 and a strong bid takes iteration.

BidWriter drafts your responses from your company profile, scores them against the marking scheme, and tracks your whole pipeline. Free to start — no card needed.

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