North Star’s expertise has been instrumental in advising transport authorities and leading operators in the bidding, design, development and delivery of shadow operations for new railway start-ups throughout the GCC and internationally. North Star’s design solution for shadow operations includes provision of strategic advice, market engagement, development of tender documents, development of strategies, policies, procedures and design review activities. Our expert advice and specialist technical knowledge has been relied upon to develop key aspects of flagship rail projects during the concept phase, with commissions including
- Advising on the approach to O&M contract letting and prior involvement of a shadow operator in Qatar;
- Managing a technical bid for the successful shadow operations tender for the Qatar Railway Company Metro and Tram operation;
- Leading the response to a request for advice on the procurement options for a shadow operator for the Makkah Metro development, as part of a wider programme management office consultancy services contract;
- Designing the response for a variation order to act as shadow operator for the freight and high-speed railways in Qatar, following on from an earlier successful tender;
- Technical bid lead for a shadow operator bid for the Makkah Metro Phase 1 and 2, including the development of the technical solution to deliver a shadow operations team during the design and development stages of the new metro lines;
- Devising the technical solution for the Jeddah Metro-LRT-Tram Shadow Operations Bid;
- Providing a cost evaluation in order to verify the provisional cost estimation of the O&M Tender to be issued by a key client. This involved preparing a cost model, creating an organisation structure (with associated salaries for each post) and inclusion of required capex/ opex costs for the term of the contract.
North Star’s customers value the breadth of our expertise in all aspects of shadow operations and the customer-centric focus that we thread through the delivery of all projects. Chris Rayner, former Managing Director Dubai Metro for Serco Middle East, commented: “The ideas that North Star bring really challenge our thinking and help us focus on doing the right thing for our customers and making sure our service offering stands out. Customer service is important to Serco and North Star shares those values and helps us with fulfilling that vision.”
