Securing the next twenty years of commuter rail for Dallas-Fort Worth

The Trinity Railway Express connects downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth, with stops throughout the Mid-Cities and at Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Airport, making it a critical regional link for commuters across North Texas. DART needed to secure a new operations and maintenance contract to keep this service running reliably for the next ten to twenty years, while structuring the solicitation to accommodate future growth, including the eventual addition of TEXRail to the scope of service. 

Procuring a contract of this size and duration required a solicitation package built to attract qualified bidders, hold up to industry scrutiny, and reflect accurate, defensible operational metrics from day one.

Our team provided DART management with procurement support in developing the solicitation package for operations and maintenance of the TRE and DCTA. We reviewed other agency requests for proposals and contracts to inform the approach, confirmed operational metrics for the service, and prepared a draft request for proposal for industry review. 

Our support helped structure a procurement package built for the long term, with a ten-year base term and a ten-year extension option, and with the flexibility to add TEXRail to the service scope once that option was executed.

The solicitation package secured operation and maintenance coverage for the TRE and DCTA worth more than $600 million during the base term alone, supporting up to twenty years of reliable commuter rail service between Dallas and Fort Worth. With the TEXRail option now executed, the procurement's flexible structure is supporting an expanding regional rail network connecting the Mid-Cities and DFW Airport.