Urban mobility: how to identify tenders related to transport, flows and mobility services

Urban mobility has become a central pillar of local public policies. Faced with urban congestion, climate challenges, changing usage patterns and the need to improve territorial accessibility, local authorities are multiplying projects related to transport, travel and mobility services.
This dynamic results in a growing volume of public tenders covering mobility studies, traffic modelling, forward-looking analysis, project management assistance and the operation of urban transport networks.
For engineering consultancies, advisory firms, specialized engineering companies and mobility operators, knowing how to identify these tenders has become a major strategic challenge.

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1. Why urban mobility is generating more and more public tenders

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Local authorities – municipalities, groups of municipalities, agglomeration communities, metropolitan authorities or urban communities – are now on the front line when it comes to organizing mobility within their territories.
They must reconcile several objectives: smoothing traffic flows, reducing emissions, developing alternatives to private car use, improving public transport services and adapting public space to new uses.

To achieve these objectives, local authorities do not always have sufficient in-house expertise. They therefore rely heavily on specialized external service providers, through public tenders, to support them in the design, analysis and implementation of their mobility strategies.
These tenders cover both the upstream phase (diagnosis, studies, scenarios) and the operational phase (project management assistance, monitoring, operation).

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2. Mobility study tenders: analysing flows and behaviours

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Flow and traffic studies

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One of the first types of tenders in urban mobility concerns the analysis of travel flows.
Local authorities regularly commission studies aimed at:

• measuring traffic flows (cars, public transport, bicycles, pedestrians),
  
  
• analysing congestion points,
  
  
• understanding home-to-work, home-to-school or inter-district travel patterns,
  
  
• assessing the impact of an infrastructure project or a change in traffic planning.
  
  

These studies rely on field surveys, traffic counts, mobility data, but also on advanced modelling tools.

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Behaviour and usage studies

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Beyond flows, local authorities also seek to understand user behaviour.
Why do people choose a particular mode of transport?
What levers can encourage modal shift towards public transport or soft mobility solutions?

This leads to tenders covering:

• travel surveys,
  
  
• sociological and behavioural analyses,
  
  
• studies on the acceptability of mobility projects,
  
  
• assessment of existing and future usage patterns.
  
  

3. Tenders for traffic modelling and forward-looking mobility scenarios

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Traffic modelling has become an essential component of modern urban mobility policies. Faced with increasingly complex mobility systems, local authorities need robust tools to understand current travel patterns, anticipate future demand and assess the impact of their strategic choices. As a result, many public tenders are launched to design and operate traffic models capable of simulating changes in transport demand, evaluating the effects of new infrastructure projects, analysing the introduction of low-emission zones, supporting the development of public transport networks or cycling infrastructure, and integrating new mobility services such as shared mobility or on-demand transport.

These modelling assignments go well beyond simple technical simulations. They often include the construction of forward-looking scenarios that allow elected officials and technical departments to compare different medium- and long-term trajectories, assess policy trade-offs and support decision-making. By testing multiple scenarios, local authorities can better understand the consequences of their choices in terms of congestion, emissions, accessibility and service quality.

As a result, specialised consultancies in traffic modelling, mobility data analysis and strategic foresight are increasingly in demand. Their expertise is frequently mobilised through dedicated public contracts, reflecting the growing importance of data-driven and scenario-based approaches in the design of sustainable urban mobility strategies

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4. Mobility plans (PDM, PDIE, PDU) and soft mobility schemes

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Mobility plans represent another major category of public tenders in the field of urban mobility. Local authorities are required to regularly design, update or revise a wide range of strategic planning documents that structure mobility policies at different territorial levels. These include territorial mobility plans, urban mobility plans, employer or inter-company mobility plans, as well as broader strategic mobility master plans. Each of these documents plays a key role in defining long-term mobility objectives, prioritising investments and coordinating transport policies with urban planning, environmental and economic strategies.

Public tenders related to mobility plans typically cover several phases. They often begin with a comprehensive diagnostic of existing mobility patterns, infrastructure and services, followed by stakeholder consultation and public engagement processes. Based on this analysis, service providers are then tasked with defining strategic orientations, building coherent scenarios and translating them into concrete action plans, implementation roadmaps and monitoring indicators. These assignments require strong expertise in mobility planning, public policy, facilitation and data analysis, which explains the recurring use of specialised consultancies through public procurement.

Alongside these strategic mobility plans, the growing importance of active and soft mobility — particularly cycling and walking — has led to a significant increase in dedicated tenders. Local authorities increasingly commission cycling master plans, pedestrian strategies, studies on cycling network continuity and projects focused on integrating soft mobility into public space. These initiatives aim to improve safety, accessibility and connectivity, while encouraging modal shift away from private cars.

Such projects are often closely linked to broader environmental and land-use issues. When new mobility infrastructure affects natural areas, green corridors or sensitive environments, biodiversity considerations become an integral part of the planning process. In this context, it can be particularly relevant to connect mobility tenders with environmental and biodiversity-related requirements, especially for developments that interact with natural habitats or protected spaces.

To explore this further, you can consult our article dedicated to biodiversity tender monitoring

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5. Project management assistance (AMO) and support for local authorities

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Beyond studies, many tenders concern project management assistance in mobility.
These assignments involve supporting local authorities in:

• managing transport projects,
  
  
• coordinating stakeholders,
  
  
• preparing and analysing procurement procedures,
  
  
• monitoring service providers,
  
  
• assessing the performance of mobility services.
  
  

Mobility AMO services are particularly in demand for complex, multi-stakeholder or multi-phase projects, especially in metropolitan areas and large urban agglomerations.

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6. Mobility, energy and ecological transition: increasingly cross-cutting tenders

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Urban mobility is increasingly closely linked to energy and climate challenges.
Deployment of electric bus fleets, charging infrastructure, intermodality, emission reduction: these issues create strong connections between mobility, energy and environmental performance.

It is therefore not uncommon to see tenders combining mobility and energy performance, for example in projects involving multimodal transport hubs, bus depots or mobility hubs.
On these aspects, you can also consult our article dedicated to tenders related to energy efficiency and building performance

You may also be interested in our sector-specific page dedicated to EV charging tenders:

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7. Where are urban mobility tenders published, and why a tender monitoring platform is essential

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Urban mobility tenders are published across a wide range of institutional sources, which makes their identification particularly complex without the appropriate tools.

They are first published on mandatory national platforms such as BOAMP, which centralizes regulatory publications for public contracts exceeding certain thresholds. BOAMP is an essential source for obtaining a national overview of public procurement, but it does not cover all publications related to urban mobility.

In addition to national sources, regional public procurement platforms and local authority buyer profiles play a major role. Each region, metropolitan authority or agglomeration may operate its own publication portal. Mobility organizing authorities (AOMs), transport syndicates, intermunicipal bodies and, in some cases, public transport operators also publish tenders directly on their institutional websites.

Finally, some tenders are published on specialized platforms, in legal announcement journals or on sector-specific websites, particularly for studies, consulting services and project management assistance related to mobility.

While all these sources are relevant, they share a major limitation: their fragmentation. Manually monitoring BOAMP, each regional platform, each buyer profile and each mobility authority website is time-consuming, highly fragmented and rarely exhaustive. Moreover, this approach does not make it possible to efficiently detect projects at an early stage or to accurately filter tenders according to the specific expertise required (traffic studies, modelling, AMO, foresight, etc.).

This is why it has become essential to rely on a dedicated tender monitoring platform capable of centralizing all these sources, removing duplicates, structuring information and providing advanced filters by sector, service type and geography. Such a platform not only saves considerable time, but also delivers a comprehensive and reliable view of the market.

To better understand how this type of solution works and why it has become indispensable, you can consult our dedicated article on tender monitoring platforms and their role in identifying public procurement opportunities, which details the challenges, methodologies and benefits of centralized and automated monitoring.

In a context where urban mobility tenders are multiplying, diversifying and becoming increasingly cross-cutting, the ability to structure intelligent tender monitoring directly determines companies’ capacity to position themselves effectively on the right opportunities, at the right time.

Understanding the legal framework and publication obligations is essential to avoid missing opportunities.
In this regard, you can consult our article explaining how to use the BOAMP to identify tenders, whose principles are also applicable to mobility.

You can also read our article on calls for expressions of interest (AMI) and the APER law, which increasingly structure mobility and energy-related projects:

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8. Structuring effective monitoring of urban mobility tenders

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The main challenge lies in the dispersion of sources and the diversity of contract typologies.
Effective monitoring must make it possible to:

• cover all relevant local authorities,
  
  
• filter by type of service (studies, AMO, modelling),
  
  
• quickly identify new tenders,
  
  
• detect projects at an early stage.
  
  

This is precisely the value of specialized platforms such as Deepbloo, which are able to centralize tenders, structure information by sector and facilitate the identification of relevant opportunities, including in related fields such as energy, environment or biodiversity.

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Conclusion – Urban mobility: a strategic pool of tenders for specialized companies

The transformation of mobility policies generates a continuous flow of public tenders, covering traffic studies, modelling, foresight, mobility plans and project management assistance.
For engineering consultancies, advisory firms and specialized engineering companies, these contracts represent a major development lever.

In a context where projects are increasingly complex, cross-cutting and competitive, having structured and intelligent monitoring has become essential to capture opportunities at the right time and establish a lasting position with local authorities.

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