New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) issued the Transformation Plan Request for Proposal (RFP) — marking a major milestone in the agency’s first reorganization in over half a century. The RFP follows the development of MTA’s Transformation Plan in partnership with AlixPartners, which will position the agency to dramatically improve service, end project delays and cost overruns, and a deliver a reliable and efficient transportation system.

The RFP advances the MTA’s historic Transformation Plan by inviting vendors with specific expertise in four major categories — reorganization and consolidation of administration and back office support functions, police and safety, construction and development, and external communications — to submit bids.

• The RFP is focused on updating, standardizing, and simplifying the MTA’s administrative and back office processes, to reduce redundancies, and drive clearer lines of accountability.

• The reforms will allow the organization to exclusively turn its attention to operational excellence, and focus on core issues such as safety, day-to-day operations, and maintenance.

• In capital projects delivery, the agency is also working to address slow, costly, and bureaucratic processes related to significant construction projects by centralizing all capital project planning, development, and delivery to one unified group.

• And the MTA will also create a new central customer communication function to create clear, high quality, and consistent customer engagement.

The MTA Transformation Plan will consolidate these support functions across the six MTA operating agencies — MTA New York City Transit, MTA Bus Company, MTA Long Island Rail Road, MTA Metro-North Railroad, MTA Bridges and Tunnels, MTA Capital Construction — and its headquarters. Currently, each agency maintains its own functions regarding 14 areas: Finance; External Affairs and Customer Communications; Procurement; Human Resources; Labor Relations; Training; Engineering; Operation Standards; Construction and Development; Diversity and EEO; Information Technology; Legal and Compliance; Safety Health, and Environment; and Police and Security. At the end of the implementation these functions will be unified and redesigned.

While the Implementation RFP is an important element of advancing Transformation, the MTA has also made progress on the reorganization by moving forward on multiple fronts. This includes advancing the hiring of critical new senior leadership positions, including a Chief Transformation Officer who will be responsible for leading the execution of the Transformation and delivering on the implementation plan. It also includes refining the initial Transformation recommendations developed with AlixPartners, and developing a draft detailed implementation roadmap to guide the Implementation RFP and the work of the selected vendor(s).

The vendor or vendors selected from the RFP will directly support implementation under the Chief Transformation Officer. To be successful in this effort, the RFP requests proposers have specific skills related to the aforementioned four major categories, as well as expertise in project management consulting, deep business process reengineering experience, IT capabilities with PeopleSoft and data governance, and be proficient in working with transportation agencies and organizations with union employees.