Parking Services

14^th Floor West, City Hall

64 Victoria Street

London

SW1E 6QP

15^th December 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

Re: Westminster Motorists Survey 2009

We would like to invite your company to submit proposals for a survey and subsequent analysis of motorists in Westminster. We would like this survey to be face-to-face of our motorists, but are open to other suggested approaches.

The deadline for applications to be received by us is 12:00 noon on 7th January 2009. Please send two bound hard copies and an electronic copy on a CD-rom, of your tender to the following address:

Parking Services

14^th Floor West, City Hall

64 Victoria Street

London

SW1E 6QP

Please email by 17:00 Monday 22^nd December 2008 with confirmation of whether or not your company plans to submit proposals.

Your Proposals

Your proposals will be assessed on the following criteria:

The City Council will not be bound to accept your tender.

Background

The City Council recently introduced a new scheme to charge motorcyclists to park in Westminster. The new scheme allows motorcyclists to park in any motorcycle bay across the City including motorcycle bays in car parks for a single daily charge of £1.50. A variety of other permits exist - weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual. Since the scheme began in August a number of motorcyclists have objected to the scheme and the City Council has agreed to carry out an independent survey of both car drivers and motorcyclists to determine public feeling about how kerbside space is used.

Methodology

The survey should be carried out face-to-face, on street, aged 19 and over. Interviews should take place in 3 sample points - Hanover Square, Soho Square and Eastbourne Terrace & London Street. Questionnaires are to be completed on paper for subsequent data processing. We would like costs for 100, 200 and 250 interviews at each location spread over a number of days and times the split of car drivers to motorcyclists should be as close to 50-50 as possible. We estimate the questionnaire will last about five to ten minutes (this will depend on whether they are motorcyclists in which case there a couple of extra questions to ask). The period used should be from Monday 26^th January - Saturday 14^th February 2009.

Questionnaire

The questionnaire has been included with this letter for your information.

The following questions are examples of what we wish to find out from the survey:

Both groups of motorists are equally important to us in understanding the public perception of the charge to park motorcycles. We are particularly interested to see how the two groups of motorists view the charge. We are also keen to know how the two groups respond in relation to the type of bays they want to see more and less of.

Outputs

We would like you to provide the following outputs from the survey:

Timetable

The most important aspect of the timetable is the delivery of the excel spreadsheet and report by 23^rd February 2009. This date will be written into the final contract and we will not accept draft, unweighted or incomplete data.

Naturally we would work as closely with the supplier as needed to help meet this timetable. In particular we are happy to approve early draft versions of outputs (perhaps even without data), discuss codeframes and give guidance on exactly what is needed.

If you have any concerns about the timetable then please raise them in your proposal and how you would advise we resolve them bearing in mind the firmness of the data dates (which cannot be moved).

Key Questions

We would like you to be as open and creative in your proposal as possible. There are some key questions that we require your proposal to answer. But, in addition please feel free to include any other information you feel relevant for this project.

Q1 - Why should we commission your company to undertake this survey? What do you see as the key differences between yourselves and other market research companies?

Q2 - Please explain your sampling and weighting approach and how you will ensure we gain a representative sample.

Q3 - Please describe how you train and supervise your interviewers. In particular we would be interested to know the times of day interviewers would be expected to work, how they are recruited, whether they would be local to the Westminster (or London) area, and detailed information on the back checking process. Please include details of the experience of the team that will be working on the project.

Q4 - Please describe how you would make the survey as accessible as possible. In particular how would interviewers deal with those with a disability, the elderly and those who cannot speak English? Please bear in mind that Arabic, Portuguese and Bengali are the most commonly spoken languages by non-English speakers.

Q5 - What are your quality and audit standards and how long have you followed them? Please give detailed information on these standards in relation to fieldwork interviewers, project management and data processing.

Q6 - Please give details on comparable projects you have completed in the last two years. We are interested in face-to-face surveys conducted for urban authorities and also any comparable data you are able to offer. Please also include two referees.

Q7 - What kind of reporting will you provide?

Costs and Other Core Information

To help us compare costs between potential suppliers please complete the table below with the requested information. You may provide additional information separately if needed - but the summary of your costs must be included in this table. We have requested costs for surveys of two different lengths.

If you have any queries about this invitation to tender please contact Westminster Parking Services. We look forward to receiving your proposals.

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