Whitehall agency has entered into a deal of up to five years which will see supplier put in a place a new system to analyse a wide range of data

The Department for Transport has signed a multimillion-pound deal to implement a major new data platform intended to help government better predict and prepare for crises affecting transport in the UK.

On 9 October, the department entered into an initial three-year deal with global engineering consultancy Arup. The engagement – which is expected to be worth £12m to the London-based firm, inclusive of VAT – relates to the creation of a “digital twin” of the country’s transport infrastructure. This will support DfT’s work in the area of “crisis response and resilience”.

According to a newly published commercial notice: “This project aims to procure an analytical platform, that is robust, scalable, user-friendly and capable of combining methods across analytical disciplines to improve the DfT’s crisis response and resilience capabilities.”

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Such improvements will be enabled by better use of technology and the analysis of various types of information to better understand potential significant issues affecting road, rail and more, as well as helping government to respond to such difficulties.

“Recognising the rapid pace of change in technology and the range of possible technological methodologies, DfT is using an outcomes-based approach to enable innovation and use of novel data and technologies,” the notice add. “The aim of this work is to create a national platform capable of identifying disruptions across transport modes in a timely fashion and appropriate level of detail, combining a variety of data sources, estimate and inform users of their likely impact to people and goods, track developments, model potential interventions and gather learnings for future use.”

The deal with Arup can be extended for two further years at the DfT’s discretion. While spending is anticipated to top £10m, the contract commits to spending of only about £600,000. The contract-award letter notes that “the department is under no obligation to spend the full value of this contract”.