Tenders 

Queensland Rail is planning to release a Request for Offer for Infrastructure Capability in late July / start of August 2011. This will include ICT infrastructure housed in two data centres, service management and transition.

The tender period will be 6 weeks (42 calendar days).

An industry briefing will occur one week after RFO release.  The contact officers are Max Crane, Acting Project Manager, max.crane@qr.com.au and Peter Dor, Procurement Team Leader, peter.dor@qr.com.au.

This internet page provides an overview of Queensland Rail’s key outcomes and likely scope of the Request for Offer. It has been published to assist potential Tenderers with their preparations to submit a tender.

Click to find out more about:

• Overview of Queensland Rail Business
• Key outcomes of the contract
• Scope overview
• Term of Agreement

Overview of Queensland Rail Business

Queensland Rail Limited, with 7,000 kilometres of standard and narrow gauge railway track, more than 7,000 employees and assets of $6.6 billion, is one of Australia’s largest rail transport providers. Queensland Rail services 211 stations with a fleet of 216 passenger trains, carrying more than 55 million passengers to work, home, events and other destinations each year.

Queensland Rail Limited is an integrated rail business with more than 145 years of operational experience, serving the freight, tourism, and passenger markets.   We provide fast, safe and comfortable passenger services in the Brisbane metropolitan area and between key regional centres throughout Queensland.  

Key outcomes of the contract

Queensland Rail requires the provision of services which address the following key business outcomes and objectives:

• Above all else, Queensland Rail’s key objective for transition is the relocation of its computing equipment located in its existing data centres to replacement data centres before 30 June 2012 and with minimal disruption to its business operations.
• High infrastructure availability, through the provision of high quality data centre facilities and reliable, proactive, and efficient support services;
• Recovery to be consistent with the criticality of the applications, through verifiable disaster recovery services aligned to Queensland Rail business continuity requirements;
• Flexibility to handle peaks and growth in demand, through suitable data centre facilities and capacity planning aligned to business drivers; and
• Ability to provide a range of additional services to Queensland Rail during the term of the contract.

Scope overview

Scope of Services

At a high level, Queensland Rail requires the following services:

• Data centres facilities and the management of centralised computing infrastructure located within those facilities;
• Service management services to support the overall delivery of ICT services to Queensland Rail; and
• Onsite field support in selected Queensland Rail locations, with the capacity to provide ad hoc services to all Queensland Rail locations.

The services required are likely to include infrastructure engineering and network engineering, database support, infrastructure support and maintenance, network support and maintenance, information management, media and software management, SOE management, infrastructure refresh, backup, disaster recovery, risk management, procurement support, and project services.

Further, Queensland Rail will require IT Service Management including level 1 and level 2 service desk (for infrastructure), incident, problem and change management, release and deployment management, service asset and configuration management, service catalogue management, access management, knowledge management, service level management, capacity and availability management, security and continuity management.

There will be a requirement for field services in some regional areas of Queensland, with the capacity to provide ad hoc field services to all Queensland Rail locations.

Out of Scope

The following areas are out of scope:

• Centralised computing infrastructure located outside of the data centre facilities;
• Retained service management services performed by Queensland Rail; and
• Retained field support performed by Queensland Rail.

Services Scope

The Infrastructure types that the Services apply to are:

Queensland Rail’s preferred ownership approach is for Queensland Rail to initially own all hardware and software licences. Over the Term of the Contract, Queensland Rail may elect to have the Service Provider supply hardware and/or software licences. Regardless of the ownership of the Infrastructure, the Service Provider is responsible for the full scope of Services.

Multi-Sourced Environment

The successful tenderer will need to work co-operatively and collaboratively with all other service providers to deliver seamless end-to-end services to Queensland Rail users of the Services.

The successful tenderer must, with Queensland Rail and the Other Service Providers support, lead the co-design and implementation of the Service Management processes, which will be based on the ITIL framework and agreed by Queensland Rail prior to implementation.

The successful tenderer will have responsibility for service management services across all ICT services and Queensland Rail ICT Environments. This will be based on the approach described in the Services Model where Queensland Rail, other service providers, or the successful tenderer performs the end to end integration of each Service Management process.

Where the successful tenderer does not perform the end to end Integration of a Service Management process, the successful tenderer will be responsible for performing the identified Service Management function to the extent that it is required to deliver the services and to integrate into a Service Management function as integrated by Queensland Rail or an Other Service Provider

Term of Agreement

The initial term of the contract will be 5 years. The contract will include options for two further extensions of two years each at the sole discretion of Queensland Rail.